Fort Worth broke ground on Smiley Park in southeast Fort Worth\u2019s Ash Crescent neighborhood, aiming to transform a vacant lot behind the Best Maid Pickles warehouse.<\/p>\n
The $1.76 million park improvements will include a sports court, lighting, play equipment, site furniture, tree plantings, pavilion, drinking fountain and irrigation system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
City officials and residents broke ground Aug. 29 on the project, which is expected to be completed in February 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday represents more than a groundbreaking,\u201d said Fort Worth City Council member Chris Nettles, whose district includes the park. \u201cIt represents investment, commitment and the future of our neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n
The park is named after the smiling girl on the jar of Fort Worth-based Best Maid Pickles<\/a>.<\/p>\n About $1.16 million of the project is funded by the city\u2019s neighborhood improvement program. The other $600,000 is from the city\u2019s park dedication fees fund, consisting of funds paid by developers when parkland is not a dedicated part of their development.<\/p>\n A group of community members and city employees gathered for the groundbreaking.<\/p>\n Nettles welcomed and thanked the attendees. At that point, he was interrupted by a handful of protesters upset about his city council vote to approve a site plan for Black Mountain<\/a> data center. Nettles previously accepted a campaign contribution from the data center developer.<\/p>\n The developer is allowed to erect the data center by right and had negotiated features of a site plan with the city.<\/p>\n Denise Kahn is a member of the Fort Worth Report Documenters<\/a> crew. If you believe anything in this account is inaccurate, please email us at news@fortworthreport.org<\/a> with \u201cCorrection Request\u201d in the subject line.<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/09\/07\/fort-worth-breaks-ground-on-1-76m-smiley-park-in-southeasts-ash-crescent-area\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=759316&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/09\/07\/fort-worth-breaks-ground-on-1-76m-smiley-park-in-southeasts-ash-crescent-area\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fortworthreport.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by The FWR Staff, Fort Worth Report September 7, 2026 Fort Worth broke ground on Smiley Park in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[8219,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-429083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-documenters","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429083","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=429083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}