Southern Gateway Park's Phase One (right side above, including the hilltop-covered restaurant/retail complex at center) and Phase Two (upper left above). [Image: HKS]
Southern Gateway Park, a planned $172 million, five-acre deck park over I-35 by the Dallas Zoo—just reached a big milestone. TxDOT has completed the foundation deck for Phase 1 of the deck park (seen in the right half of the image above). The park will literally and figuratively reconnect the Oak Cliff neighborhood that was divided by I-35 in the 1950s.
The park promises to be an engineering marvel with five acres of wooded slopes, water features, rocky escarpments, a restaurant/retail complex hidden under a hilltop, and one of the most awesome kids' playgrounds in North Texas. But its greatest achievement may be to make Oak Cliff whole again—and to bring all of Dallas together.