Since 1999, Patty Ortiz has been pushing for a park in her corner of the University Hills neighborhood in southeast Denver.
The closest park to her longtime home is Mamie D. Eisenhower Park — a half an hour walk that involves crossing a busy section of Yale Avenue. That trek was once more achievable, but it's gotten harder for Ortiz.
“I would walk all the way to Eisenhower and everything, but since then I’ve gotten old. I've gotten gray. I sometimes can't walk that far,” she said.
In a small classroom at the nearby Denver Academy, her dream for a closer park came a little closer to reality.
There, Denver Parks & Recreation shared potential designs for Bethesda Park, which the city hopes to open in 2027.
Denver purchased the land for the park in 2019
Using money from the voter-approved Parks Legacy Fund, the city spent $5.1 million to purchase a 2-acre site of a former greenhouse and garden center at Iliff Avenue and Bellaire Street.
The purchase of the property was part of a city effort to build a park within a 10-minute walk for all neighborhoods.
Since then, Parks staff have been meeting with the community to build a vision plan for the park. In March 2024, the park was officially named Bethesda Park, after a former medical facility at the site.
The total budget of the park is expected to be $5.5 million, some of it funded with money set aside by the 2021 RISE bond.
Early designs show a variety of options, from the size of playgrounds to where shade will be
The city presented options for the park design at the Thursday night open house at Denver Academy.
The meeting aimed to engage residents’ help in fine-tuning the design.
“What we've done is we've looked at some different scenarios like the size of the playgrounds, the location of the basketball courts, the location of the shade structure, and just there's some different arrangements,” said Christopher Schooler, the project manager for the park. “So this meeting was to connect with the neighborhood and try to figure out what works for people and what they think works best.”
Ortiz said she likes the designs presented, but hopes Parks & Recreation will plant native fauna.
“I'm hoping they'll take into account where we're at with climate change,” she said. “But the native species that grow [like] cactus, it just looks natural.”
Ortiz isn’t the only one eager to see the park finished
The final design phase will continue through the summer. Construction is expected to begin in 2026.
Ashton Reppert has lived in University Hills since 2016. When the city officially announced they were building a park on the land, she knocked on doors while pregnant with her daughter to raise awareness of city meetings about the future green space.
While she’s happy that Bethesda Park is coming, she’s a little disappointed at the pace of development: By the time the park is expected to open in 2027, her daughter will be in the second grade.
“We've participated in multiple Zooms, we've taken many, many surveys over the years,” Reppert said. “So I'll believe it when I see it.”
Ortiz, who has advocated for this park for 25 years, said she’s hopeful the city will get the park open earlier than expected. She and her neighbors are willing to pitch in to make sure it’s open sooner, she said.
“A lot of people here would help [if] we need people to chip in benches or something,” Ortiz said.
