Addison Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan

In just 4.4 square miles, Addison, Texas, blends iconic parks with community livability, new urbanist development, commercial and office complexes, and events that attract thousands of visitors from throughout the Dallas Metroplex. The Town wanted an innovative plan to guide its investment into parks, facilities, and trails for residents, workers, and visitors while increasing social cohesiveness, connections to nature, economic vitality, and active recreation opportunities.

Key to developing the Master Plan, MIG’s innovative tools and bilingual outreach strategies captured the diverse perspectives of park visitors, ranging from high-powered corporate executives to local youth. An interactive, online mapping program (Maptionnaire) crowdsourced data about park use, potential walking and biking routes, and preferred locations for enhancements. Visioning and prioritization activities helped establish a new vision and goals for the park system, building consensus around the Town’s investment in seven Transformative Projects and five Game-Changing Initiatives that would reshape parks in the future.

Each proposed project is grounded in community priorities, as well as data-driven directions from the technical analysis of trail connections, parks available within a 10-minute walk, park activation strategies, asset management needs (facility lifecycles), maintenance and operations requirements, and tourism impacts. The Plan includes new park standards and three site concepts to visualize key changes. It provides financially sustainable guidance for implementation by identifying costs to address deferred maintenance now and annually while also identifying funding strategies for the new projects and initiatives. The recommended approach to managing revenues and costs helps reimagine and assure sustainable parks, public art, events, and facilities for the next 30 years.