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SALT LAKE CITY — Sunnyside Park is a bit different from the other options within Salt Lake City's park system.
While it offers a soothing stroll over Red Butte Creek on one end, it is primarily known for athletics opportunities. It features three baseball/softball fields and a pair of multipurpose fields, as well as basketball and tennis courts that regularly draw in youth and adult recreational leagues from throughout the county.
"I think a lot of parks see immediate neighbor use as being the main people who use that park. This one gets a ton of use by the neighbors, but it also has a lot of people traveling in," Kira Johnson, a planner for the Salt Lake City Department of Parks and Public Lands, said, as she stood in the park's pavilion while a youth lacrosse team practices behind her and a youth soccer game is taking place even farther in the distance.
The park is now in line to be "reimagined" after — somewhat ironically — losing some of its space to sports. The University of Utah broke ground last month on a new baseball stadium near the park's northwest corner, consuming a fourth baseball/softball field within Sunnyside Park.
Johnson is tasked with overseeing the city project, which is now underway.
Her team hosted an open house at the park on Wednesday and will host a few other in-person events over the next few weeks — such as setting up a booth at Saturday's 9th and 9th Street Festival — to gather insights from residents and park users. They also launched an online survey, all of which will be used to determine the future of the park.
"We're asking the public what they want to see with this park and what improvements they want to see," she said.
Sunnyside Park was already slated to receive some upgrades from a portion of the $85 million general obligation parks bond that residents approved in 2022. The city specifically earmarked $750,000 for Sunnyside Park improvements at the time, which likely would have been used for smaller upkeep projects.
City planners were preparing to launch their public outreach for what residents and park users wanted out of these upgrades when another happening changed everything.
The U. paid Salt Lake City $4.2 million for park improvements in exchange for a 99-year lease, for $99, of a little over an acre of the park needed to avoid a large wall that would separate the two properties. Losing a section of the park significantly increased the project's budget.
That, in turn, opened up a wider scope for what type of enhancements the park can receive.
"It was just convenient timing with just the bond," Johnson said. "You can just do so much more with $5 million than you can with $750,000."
Those who attended Wednesday's open house offered a wide range of ideas for how the money is spent. They appeared to want to make sure sports amenities remain a fixture of the park but they are also open to enhancing its open space qualities, based on some preliminary public surveys.
There appeared to be public interest in more trees and nature opportunities among ideas city planners offered, while park-goers also generated some sports improvement ideas.
While it appeared field maintenance is something multiple people agree on, there were some differences in what they could look like. One person suggested a turf field for sports, while another pleaded with the city to keep grass fields because of overheating concerns.
At least one person wrote that they'd like to see a dedicated dog section for the people who live near the park, while pickleball was also requested.
Residents and parkgoers will have until at least Oct. 21 to fill out the city's online survey. Johnson said that the team wants to understand the public's priorities and interests, which will be used to form a few concept designs that are expected to be released either late this year or in early 2025.
The timeline beyond that is much less clear. Feedback from those concepts will help planners pick a final design before any construction, which likely start sometime in 2026 at the earliest.
It's also unclear what the final design will look like, but Johnson believes whatever comes from the project will be a major boost for Sunnyside Park.
"It hasn't had any major changes in who knows how long, so this is sort of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to really do something with this park and make it better," she said.
