Contemporary Resilience Meets Victorian Style
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"3000","speed":"300","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}

DETAILS

LocationWichita, Kansas, USA
ClientTGC Development Group/Seneca Development
Size1 acre

Naftzger Park offers a contemporary and communal gathering space in downtown Wichita with enough variety to appeal to everyone.  Designed to activate an area of town between Old Town and a burgeoning new entertainment district, the park is at once an urban foyer and outdoor recreation room.  A contemporary pavilion can accommodate picnic tables by day and performances by night. A permanent LED screen enables game day events, movie nights, or even an auxiliary screen for a stage event.  A flexible lawn encourages active play as well as relaxed lounging.  And a designated “bark park” offers a place for local dog owners to mingle.  The park quietly contributes to the resilience of the city’s infrastructure with its stormwater cistern and, once the newly planted trees mature, will function as a future urban forest.

Related Projects

Balsley Park

Located on Manhattan’s West Side, Balsley Park, formerly known as Sheffield Plaza, has been transformed from a barren, lifeless plaza into the community’s most cherished common ground.

Following public outcry and many failed attempts to redesign the plaza, Thomas Balsley Associates was hired to build community consensus around a new park-like image and ...

Westshore Park

Complementing the Inner Harbor’s world-famous promenade, Westshore Park has come to be known as the city’s living room on the harbor. The park is strategically located on the innermost shore of the harbor and sandwiched between the new Baltimore Visitor Center and the Maryland Science Center. Having rediscovered its maritime heritage and opened it to the world...

Curtis Hixon Park

Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park has been heralded as Tampa’s missing “here” and the crown jewel in the city’s Riverwalk, a bold new urban plan conceived to reactivate the Hillsboro River and downtown Tampa. To ensure that the park takes its place as focal point of this new cultural district, a master plan was prepared from which the park, Riverwalk, and museums a...

Skyline Park

After an extensive public dialogue on its original design and performance, the City of Denver decided on a redesign of Skyline Park, downtown Denver’s only public open spaces. The three-block-long, three-acre, linear park is at the center of downtown Denver and is bisected by the 16th Street Mall, a lively pedestrian space that connects many of Denver’s attrac...

Milton Street Park

Milton Street Park is a  1.2-acre linear urban park alongside the Ballona Creek Bike Trail in Los Angeles, California. The plan incorporates numerous green-design elements, including the use of recycled materials, native planting, flow-through planters and treatment alongside the 1,000-foot-long, 45-foot-wide stretch of land. A variety of special elements such...

Soundview Park

Soundview Park, built on 212 acres of landfill at the junction of the Harlem and East Rivers in the South Bronx, is the most significant recreational facility in Community Board 9. As part of the PlanNYC initiative, Thomas Balsley Associates was selected as the lead designer of Soundview’s master plan. This brownfield remediation will drastically improve both ...

Residences at W New York Downtown

The Residences at W New York Downtown is located in lower Manhattan. The at-grade public plaza creates an urban space with a food kiosk surrounded by a large raised wood deck with table, chairs, and built-in custom stainless steel benches and bar seating along the perimeter. A series of interplaying IPE wood and pre-cast concrete benches creates seating and co...

Capitol Plaza

Capitol Plaza is located in the lively neighborhood of Chelsea Heights amid weekend antiques markets, art galleries, hip hop stores, design studios, residential towers, and Flower District shops. This narrow swath cuts through a block just east of Sixth Avenue and is one of dozens throughout the densest portions of Manhattan that bring a moment of respite and ...