MARY FRANCES KEISLING PARK MASTER PLAN

Mary Frances Keisling Park is a newer park that obtained its first park amenities in 2004 with the development of two sportsfields. Shortly following, a playground was added, and access to the Rio Grande River Trail followed after that. Unfortunately, not much else has been added to this great park since then, leaving muchto be desired by the surrounding community. The potential contained in this park is great, as it fills a gap in park space in the area, and has plenty of open land potential to see much more in regard to amenity offerings. Due to the park’s proximity along the Rio Grande River Trail, it can be considered a pearl on a long string of necklaces within the region, a stop along the way as users move up and down the Rio Grande River Valley. At the same time, this park is embedded within a closely-knit neighborhood, with neighbors who care about this space and frequent it often for more casual day-to-day uses. In the middle of these scales, the park has the potential to serve area-wide users with its large sports fields and potential to host more facilities and amenities within its space. Overall, Mary Frances Keisling Park requires a vision that will address the needs of all types of users from all areas of the neighborhood, city, and region. This park can fill gaps in service for community-based facilities, and bring new amenities to El Paso that the community has desired for a long time. This Master Plan serves to provide a guide for the City to use to implement change and improvements in this park over time as funding becomes available, a plan that is driven by and for the community.

About the Master Plan Process

*Master Plans are planning documents that guide implementation over a period of years as funding for those improvements become available.  Master Plans typically look like multi-page documents that outline analysis of a site's current conditions, community engagement that informs the process, and concept designs in plan form and sometimes renderings that graphically depict the potential for park improvements as guided by the community.

Funding that has been approved to date for Memorial Park is for the purposes of conducting the Master Plan process only. No funding for the implementation (construction) of improvements has been identified or discussed.

Mary Frances Keisling - Final Master Plan

Adopted on 2022 - 12.13.22

The master plan vision for Mary Frances Keisling Park orients the park around a central communal grass field, from which spirals a community building, bicycling amenities, dog parks, sport courts, gardens, children’s play features, and community gathering spaces, all interconnected by pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular networks that connect users within the park as well as to greater pathway networks linking the park to the greater regional trail system.

The improvements outline in this master plan document seek to understand how MFK may best serve our community as a local neighborhood park but also fill gaps in services. This Master Plan document will provide a guide for the City to use to implement change, to provide improvements over time as funding becomes available, and to create a park that is driven by and for the community.

Mary Frances Keisling Master Plan Public Engagement - Round 2

At this phase of the project process, we are looking for all members of the community who use or want to use Mary Frances Keisling Park to provide their thoughts and ideas on two preliminary master plan concept ideas developed directly from community input gathered to date. The input the community provides at this phase will be used to drive the final Master Plan* vision.

Deadline: August 31,2022

Community Engagement Event at the park

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Community Input

  • “Plenty of sporting locations near. Given this is a park in a more laid back neighborhood it would be preferred to have an indoor area (air conditioning and restrooms) for gatherings as well as a library. More lighting in the park area would be beneficial.”

  • “Pedestrian crosswalk is absolutely something to consider as this park expands - this curve in the road is a bit blind and sets up some dangerous situations as kids/families cross the street.”

  • “This park has so much space for trees and shade. The upper valley’s green environment gives our neighborhood its uniqueness. The park is missing that appeal. It takes many years to grow a tree to its full size and I think we should plant hundreds of trees now so younger generations can enjoy natural shade in the far future.”

  • “It would be nice for more grass and open space areas with shaded trees, also ways to protect these areas of landscape trees and grass, people continue to ride their ATV’s in park areas destroying our park, this needs to be prevented.”

  • “It would be really nice to see a large dog park.”

  • “Park is extremely useful to youth sport organizations. The immense space allows for plenty of room for practices as well as parking space. However, the park could definitely benefit of lighting. Not only will lighting allow for latter practice times but also for our kids' safety. This park is great for our future generations overall.”

  • “We really need a dedicated Pickleball courts. It is one of the fastest growing sports in the USA, and like always El Paso lags behind compared to other cities. It’s time to move forward!”

 

*Master Plans are planning documents that guide implementation over a period of years as funding for those improvements become available.  Master Plans typically look like multi-page documents that outline analysis of a site's current conditions, community engagement that informs the process, and concept designs in plan form and sometimes renderings that graphically depict the potential for park improvements as guided by the community.

Funding that has been approved to date for Memorial Park is for the purposes of conducting the Master Plan process only. No funding for the implementation (construction) of improvements has been identified or discussed.