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SALT LAKE CITY — Ifa Motuliki cracked a smile through the lightly falling hail as he watched students gather around city leaders to break ground on a new regional park less than a block from his Glendale home.
Sporting a white hat with the name of his neighborhood printed on it, Motuliki didn't want to miss the Thursday event. He fought to ensure the city included new pickleball courts as it pieced together a plan for the location where Raging Waters water park once stood.
"This is great. I have been waiting for this for many years now," he said, standing at the future park.
The six new pickleball courts adjacent to the park are just one component of the forthcoming Glendale Regional Park, the city's first regional park since Sugar House Park was established in 1957. It's also slated to host all sorts of amenities, from community gathering spaces to hiking areas and even a new outdoor pool once the full project is completed.
Salt Lake City leaders and community members braved the cold and soggy weather Thursday for the ceremonial start to the first phase of the project. This initial phase of the park should open in the summer of 2024.
"This is the first regional park in Salt Lake City history that will truly be built by community inspiration," Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said.
How a new park came together
Getting to this day was a few years in the making.
The Raging Waters site quickly fell into disrepair after the water park closed in 2018, and even more so after a failed attempt to sell the site a year later. By 2020, the vacant park had become a hotbed for criminal activity. But because of some stipulations for federal funds when the water park opened, the city was required to reopen the land in some form of public open space within six years of closing.
That's when the idea of a regional park came into play. Salt Lake City unveiled the plans more than two years ago, leading to a lengthy public process to create a plan for what will be included at the park, involving all sorts of community feedback from all ages.
The Salt Lake City Council approved a final plan earlier this year, with $27 million of the $85 million of the parks bond residents approved last year. It will cover a large chunk of the full project, which is estimated to cost between $30 million and $55 million.
However, given the tight turnaround to open a new park, the city's public lands department decided to open the park in phases — so there's open space available, even if it doesn't include everything listed in the master plan.
The first phase will include a "massive" all-ages and all-abilities playground, a full-sized basketball court, a promenade for community events and looped pathways that will connect to the existing Glendale Park, as well as basic infrastructure improvements like a new parking lot, said Katherine Maus, a planner for Salt Lake City's public lands department.
While the city is shooting for an opening next summer, Maus admits there is still some "uncertainty" in terms of an exact opening. This is largely because of challenges construction projects have faced since the COVID-19 pandemic, such as supply chain shortages. That said, she believes it will still open in 2024 because of the six-year deadline.
After helping gather feedback and turning it into a design, she's also thrilled the project is moving into a construction phase.
"It is so exciting," Maus said. "Now that we have the bond, we have the design for phase one and we have community support. It's just really exciting to see something tangible being realized. ... We're really, really excited to have that light on the horizon."
The completed park will have different features and even nods to the old Raging Waters. Some of the park's old water slides, which are stacked in pieces on the land, will be used in some sort of art piece that will be included in the park, Mendenhall said.
Planning for the park's second phase is expected to begin next year, as a result of funding included in the first portion of the park bond, Maus told KSL.com. She believes the process will take about a year before construction begins.
"We're moving right along," she said.
A new community place
City and community leaders say the park is a "generational investment" for the city's west side, which has largely been forgotten and disproportionately represented in the past.
Turner Bitton, chairman of the Glendale Neighborhood Council, says he believes the park will be the "heart of a neighborhood that's on the rise" when it's completed, serving as an anchor that will bring people back to the west side like the water park once did.
Motuliki, who laments the struggle of finding open pickleball courts in the city, is already looking forward to having new courts closer to home. He says the sport — particularly popular in Utah — can bring people of all ages and backgrounds together.
In that sense, the game is a microcosm of what the park might be for his neighborhood.
"We need to see that in our neighborhood," he said. "We need to see them come together. ... I need to see everyone come together and be one."
