EmPOWERment Park

The Sacramento Parks Foundation was awarded $6,280,000 in Prop 68 funds for this project. O’Dell Engineering, a Westwood company provided grant assistance, public outreach, conceptual design, and estimating support to the Foundation. Our team developed a master plan for EmPOWERment Park, an outreach program (Placemaking Through Play) to maximize grant points, and the actual grant package submitted to the State of California. EmPOWERment Park includes a parking lot with 11 ADA spaces, a round-a-bout, a drop-off zone, welcome signage, a tactile park map, a community garden, a storage shed, an ADA restroom, a barbecue and picnic area, water play, a 2 to 5-year-old play lot, a 5 to 12-year-old play lot, a 5 to 12-year-old custom inclusive play structure, a sensory wall, a bankshot court, court games, an open lawn area, safety fencing, perimeter fencing, a privacy wall, and shade sails.

EmPOWERment Park is designed with socially inclusive principles to be a place where people of all abilities and ages can gather to play and recreate. The park features an energy/electricity theme to honor and show appreciation to SMUD for donating the land that made it possible. The park also includes educational features that highlight the many ways that power is provided to the community on a daily basis. Sustainability was a significant focus during the design process with the inclusion of features that promote the wise stewardship of resources. The space was carefully planned to provide myriad childhood development needs, while simultaneously providing universal access, socially inclusive and sensory integrated opportunities, and intergenerational play options. The park, though petite in size, is as diverse as the patrons who will one day visit, explore, play, and make memories here.