3-6 pm
Parklane Park!
This community celebration is planned to coincide with the last day of school for Parklane and Oliver schools. The ribbon cutting ceremony will begin at 3:30pm, and there will be family-friendly activities happening throughout the park before and after the ceremony. District 1 council members Loretta Smith and Jamie Dunphy will be in attendance.
Official event website HERE.
Portland Parks & Recreation has completed the long-awaited expansion of Parklane Park. Following a five-and-a-half-year design and construction process, the park is now open and has been transformed from five acres to 25 acres of recreational space in District 1. It is now Portland’s largest developed park east of I-205. The new Parklane Park features a new playground, splash pad, basketball and tennis courts, soccer fields, pavilion for community events, covered picnic areas, community garden, skate park, dog off-leash area, paved walking paths, additional restrooms, parking, public art, and hundreds of new trees.
Looking towards the splash pad and playground at Parklane Park. System Development Charge (SDCs), not tax dollars, funded the park project. SDCs are one-time fees from new developments that support Portland’s growing infrastructure. The park was designed by local landscape architecture firm, Walker Macy, and constructed by Stacy Witbeck. A Local Improvement District (LID) funded by the park project and managed by the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) created street and sidewalk improvements that improves access to and around the new park.
New Public Art
Naomi Likayi is a first-generation Congolese American artist based in Portland. Her mural installed at Parklane Park’s pavilion and picnic shelter columns, called Shared Differences, was inspired by the Bakongo Dikenga Cosmogram. It symbolizes the connections between the spiritual and physical worlds, the seasons, and ancestral knowledge. As part of the process, Portlanders chose a community Cosmogram to represent the power of collaboration—regardless of where each of us is in the four seasons of life. Jennifer Dixon is a cross-disciplinary artist whose works have been exhibited locally and nationally. Her work at Parklane Park, Stone Seed Nest, celebrates the natural world and quintessential characteristics of the Pacific Northwest. The works call attention to the park’s distinct location and the past, present, and future of the ever-changing Centennial neighborhood. Part of Portland’s public art collection, both Dixon and Likayi’s pieces were commissioned through the City’s Percent for Art program, which is managed by the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) via a contract with the Office of Arts & Culture.
Join the Parklane Park Opening Celebration
Thursday, June 12, 3pm to 6pm, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 3:30pm. The ceremony will include Portland Parks & Recreation Director Adena Long, District 1 Councilors Loretta Smith and Jamie Dunphy, and other community partners. Enjoy family-friendly activities in the new park after the final bell on the last day of school for Parklane Elementary and Oliver Middle School students just next door. Look for an invitation in our next email!
For more information about the project, see Parklane Park Project; email Maija.Spencer@PortlandOregon.gov.