Addison Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan

In just 4.4 square miles, Addison blends iconic parks with new urbanist development, commercial and office complexes, and festivals and nightlife that attract visitors from the entire Dallas Metroplex. With those unique attributes, the Town needed an innovative approach to a Master Plan that would identify and balance competing community priorities.

While the town has fewer than 15,000 residents, it has a workforce of more than 53,000. Residents are about 28% young urban professionals, 31% Hispanic/Latino, and 86% rental housing dwellers.

Our innovative tools and bilingual outreach strategies reached a diverse audience, ranging from high-powered corporate executives to local youth and seniors. An interactive, online mapping program (Maptionnaire) crowdsourced data about park use and preferred locations for enhancements. We also met with local business associations and provided tools for staff to conduct pop-up events at places both residents and visitors frequent: the Athletic Club, playgrounds, Spruill Dog Park, and office complexes such as the Spectrum Tower. Project priorities were confirmed through an online Prioritization Challenge, which invited 160 Advisory Committee members, Leadership Team members, and stakeholders to allocate funding between different projects

The GIS analysis into the park distribution evaluated the numbers of residents and employees living or working within a 10-minute walk of a park—exceeding standards of the new national 10-Minute Walk Campaign. The Plan also recommended a new approach to tracking and managing revenues and costs to address asset management needs and ensure sustainable maintenance and operations for parks, art, events and facilities far into the future.