Kiddieland may never return to Lions Park, but Waco Parks and Recreation officials say they intend to retain the stone entry wall and other classic design elements of the midcentury park while considering setting aside space for a community pool.
Parks officials presented some options for the park’s future in new renderings presented Thursday evening at the final of four public input meetings for the redevelopment on North 42nd Street.
The first meeting in May saw participants sketch out and pitch ideas for the park and the second meeting in June saw three diagrams presented, which were narrowed down to two concept plans at a third meeting in July.
The latest renderings show a two-phase plan that includes several open fields with many art features, as well as a few pavilions, spaces for food trucks, playgrounds, water features, a track for the old Lions Park train, and future possible space for a pool.
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Parks and Recreation Director Jonathan Cook said the final design came as a result of the several rounds of public input, though elements of the design could still change before the construction on the park finally begins.
Disc golfers try their skills at a pop-up course on the old Lions Park grounds recently. The event was sponsored by Ninja Bob’s Halloween Hustle benefiting the Heart of Texas Behavioral Health Network. Participants had to donate canned goods along with an entry fee.
Lions Park, located adjacent to Waco High School, had a long and storied history in Waco before closing in 2021 amid pandemic pressures. The park was opened in 1952 by the Waco Founder Lions Club and featured baseball fields and a swimming pool before Kiddieland, a youth amusement park, opened in 1965.
Most of Kiddieland’s rides were dismantled and auctioned off after the closure, and the city has been trying to revamp the park ever since.
Cook said Waco hopes to create a “destination” park that draws visitors from not only all over the city, but the county as well. Waco has contracted OJB Landscape Architecture, which had a large hand in designing the renowned Klyde Warren Park in downtown Dallas. PR firm K Strategies will also assist the city in the development of the park.
Cook said the park’s main focus will be to create a place for children and families to come together and make memories. He said by having many different areas with different features and options, the city hopes to create “pockets” for different park experiences.
“Another thing that we really focused in on was pockets, to where it’s not just a big open space, but where you could go and get a sense of privacy,” Cook said. “But it’s also different experiences. What we see in park design is, when you have different pockets of activities, it’s sort of like a different room. So you can go to different rooms of the park and it’s a different vibe, a different experience.”
Cook also said the city wants to retain classic elements of the park while also creating something new for the city. Some residents who have spoken at the public input meetings have expressed concerns about the loss of Kiddieland-like rides and the lack of firm plans for a pool, as well as the possible removal of trees on the property.
Audience members discuss proposals for the redevelopment of Lions Park.
John Tipton, former president of the Lions Club, said he has been pleased with how Waco has progressed with the revamping of Lions Park. He said while many people may yearn for the old Lions Park, he said the city has done a good job compromising and creating a new park that still retains classic features of the old park.
“When you think of what the old Lions Park was,” Tipton said. “It was a pool, it was a putt-putt center, it was an amusement park for small kids, and had a huge slide — which actually is kind of funny, cause the slide hadn’t been there for years but people think the slide was there — it had go-karts and before that, it was tennis courts. So that’s not what this is. So as far as a compromise, they didn’t duplicate what we did in the past. They were trying to find something that worked with the community.”
Cook said the city is performing cost analysis at the park for the first phase of construction. He said the city has set aside $3 million for the construction of the park.
WATCH NOW: At the June 26 meeting at the Waco Convention Center, representatives from the OJB Landscape Architecture firm presented four schematics representing possibilities for the park based on ideas gathered in the Lions Park community survey.
WATCH NOW: Community members at the May 3 public input meeting on the future of Lions Park expressed their desire to infuse the old with the new, asking for memorable features of the park’s past to be brought back to life.
