{"id":284479,"date":"2026-05-08T14:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/284479\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T14:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:33:09","slug":"a-new-park-fills-the-gap-over-a-divisive-dallas-freeway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/284479\/","title":{"rendered":"A new park fills the gap over a divisive Dallas freeway"},"content":{"rendered":"

The once-empty space over 14 lanes of interstate highway traffic coursing through the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas is now an exceptional new development open to the public: Halperin Park<\/a>. The $300 million freeway capping project includes a playground, splash pad, band shell, large lawn, and linear walkway that resurrects an erased section of a historic street.<\/p>\n

Joining the widely celebrated freeway-capping Klyde Warren Park<\/a>, which opened its first phase over a stretch of a recessed downtown freeway in 2012, Halperin Park is a community-centric model for addressing the divisions wrought by highway building.<\/p>\n

\"\"[Photo: Bill Tatham\/SWA]Reconnecting a neighborhood<\/p>\n

Designed by architecture firm HKS and landscape architecture firm SWA, the cap park reconnects part of Oak Cliff, a South Dallas neighborhood cut up by the 1950s-era highway-building boom. <\/p>\n

At the time I-35E was constructed, Oak Cliff was home to a thriving Black community. As in many other non-white neighborhoods in cities across the country, the community was shattered by highway construction and the decades of disinvestment that followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s a park to reconnect communities, it\u2019s also a park that we wanted the communities to feel like they helped design; they helped influence the programming,\u201d says Todd Strawn, managing principal for SWA\u2019s Dallas studio and lead designer on the project. <\/p>\n

During the planning process, a \u201ccommunity-first plan\u201d was developed through extensive outreach, focusing the project on outcomes<\/a> like improving access for schools in the surrounding area, increasing shade, and reducing the heat island effect in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\"\"[Photo: David Lloyd\/SWA]Balancing recreation and economic development<\/p>\n

As it officially opens, the 2.8-acre park is forging a small but meaningful reconnection in the area. Its design honors the neighborhood\u2019s history while also encouraging the economic development it needs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The once-empty space over 14 lanes of interstate highway traffic coursing through the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,21555,104589,104590,104591],"class_list":["post-284479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-hks","tag-landscape-architecture","tag-public-space","tag-swa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}