Keep Scottsdale Beautiful: Empowering Communities

Keep Scottsdale Beautiful in partnership with Scottsdale Leadership worked to re-energize Pride Park, located at 8006 Coronado Rd in South Scottsdale near McDowell and Hayden. 

Known as a pocket park - a small outdoor space, usually no more than ¼ of an acre located in an urban area – Pride Park provides a safe and inviting environment for the community to gather, relax, and enjoy the outdoors. 

The goal of this project was to make the park an asset to the neighborhood, enhancing the quality of life for residents, while attracting pollinators like butterflies, bees and hummingbirds.

Pride Park is a part of one of the first neighborhoods in Scottsdale. Originally referred to as Park McDowell, the neighborhood was built in 1950 by architect Frank Fazio who worked side-by-side with Ralph Haver in the infamous Architect Row in Phoenix. The mid-century designed homes were block constructed houses originally built as a 2 bed/1 bath home with iconic corner windows and flat roofs. 

As part of the Core Program of Scottsdale Leadership, new members are part of a team that are implementing this community service project. Initially, they hosted an open house inviting neighbors to provide their ideas for the renovation. Based on their feedback and Keep Scottsdale Beautiful requests, they worked with a landscape designer to develop a new plan that met all the needs and desires of the community. 

While this space isn't conducive to having the amenities of a typical city park (a playground, ramada, turf) it is a great community space that can be a community gathering space where neighbors can gather and build memories. The park renovation will feature:

 - A variety of new desert plants and trees

 - A mural by local artist, Laura Thurbon, who will create a design to honor Park McDowell's history and support of pollinators.

 - A concrete pad to be used for sidewalk chalk art, games of four square, putting down a blanket for a picnic or a yoga mat.

 - In addition to new pollinator-friendly vegetation, 'bee blocks' will be address as a friendly place for bees to call home.

 - Plans for a small, 'free little library' so park visitors can easily find something to read and share with others.

Since December 2021, both Keep Scottsdale Beautiful and Scottsdale Leadership have been working together to bring community businesses and residents to help make this project possible. 

The renovation was completed in May 2022.