Story and Photo by Blake Herzog
Prescott’s Willow Creek Park has been central to the social lives of hundreds of thousands of dogs and their families since the opening of its Beneful Dream Dog Park nearly 12 years ago, after resident Linda Nichols won a half-million-dollar dog park makeover for the City from the pet-food brand.
This year the city has put another $500,000 into the entire park to make its amenities more appealing and functional for users on four and two legs, formally opened with a June ribbon-cutting.
That amount of money doesn’t stretch as far as it once did, so City staff put in a lot of the grunt work required to make it a reality.
“We did a lot of the work in-house just to again stretch the dollars and be able to extend all of those levels of improvement, so, it’s, it to me, it’s an investment well worth it in our community, it’s very family-focused and community-focused,” Recreation Services Director Kristy Diaz-Trahan says.
The park has gotten a new “leash” on life, and attendance is up from about 300 to 500 (human) visitors per day, she says.
“They walk in with a ‘Wow this place is beautiful.’ And the response from the humans are just, they’re just loving the amenities, and so are the dogs, and as the weather gets warmer both are enjoying the new misting element and splash pad. One of the key functions in terms of improvement that we did is we got the doggy splash pad,” Diaz-Trahan says.
Gentler than a standard kiddie splash pad, “It just kind of squirts a little bit of water on them. There’s no special features that you would have in a kid splash pad. But it’s fun, they can splash around and cool off,” she says.
Diaz-Trahan said the misting element isn’t exactly new — it’s just never worked properly. The hydrants in the firefighter-themed park were always intended to spray water droplets to cool everyone down.
“Our parks team went in and removed and replaced all of the irrigation, put in new heads and now, again, as the temperatures are getting warm, the humans now can also enjoy a little bit of cool water on them as these hot days occur,” she says.
Four Arizona ash trees have been added to the space and are beginning to grow into their role bringing additional shade to the surface, which is now covered by a new, specialized type of artificial turf more tailored to canines’ and their owners’ needs than the “garden-variety” brand previously used.
“Essentially, it’s engineered to withstand pet urine. It provides more efficient draining, so that way that can wash out the urine quicker as well as minimizing odor. We definitely upgraded the level of turf and the type of turf that we have out there,” Diaz-Trahan says.
Not to mention the previous turf was more than 10 years old and coming up at the edges of the field where dogs had been pulling it up. The edges are now secured by a concrete border that will help to secure the turf and maintain a cleaner appearance throughout the play area.
Additional improvements to the dog park include solar-powered lighting at the park entrance and the main ramada within the play area to make the park more welcoming in lower-light conditions. The landscaping has been redone at the entrance, and larger concrete pads have been installed at the entrance and under misting areas to improve drainage and accessibility.
As much as people love their pets, Diaz-Trahan notes, “nobody wants a mud-filled dog in their car.”
All the dog park renovations, which were completed in February, have not affected the firehouse theme, which was proposed by Nichols in her video essay to Beneful in the wake of the loss of the 19 Granite Mountain Hot Shots in the 2013 Yarnell Hill wildfire.
The grounds at what’s officially known as Jim McCasland Willow Creek Park after a longtime parks director, at 3181 Willow Creek Road, also include a multiuse playfield, playground, basketball court and trailhead for the Willow Lake Trail. The first two sections also were overhauled this year and completed in the spring.
Ten thousand square feet of lush green sod was added to the playfield, transforming the dusty outfield where “you have youth, you have little girls and little boys out there in center field, but they’re standing in dirt,” Diaz-Trahan says.
The infield of the outdated field has been laser-leveled, the dugouts upgraded and pushed back from the foul lines, a new scoreboard added and the fencing upgraded.
“And that place is now reserved like crazy, and the Prescott Little League organization is going to host the Little League all-stars and they’re going to be using that field for the first time,” Diaz-Trahan says.
The 20-year-old equipment on the playground tucked behind the basketball courts has been replaced with cutting-edge climbing tower, rope course, slides, swings and a hand-cranked game that builds competition and camaraderie among young users.
City parks staff used extra turf from the dog park project and concrete curbing to create a tree-shaded seating area for parents and other onlookers.
“It’s wonderful,” Diaz-Trahan says. “It’s like you’re sitting there on grass underneath this beautiful tree watching your kids play at the playground. It was just like, ‘Hey, we have this extra turf. Let’s make use of it so the community has a better experience.’”
Prescott’s improvements to City parks are far from done. The recreation department has been putting the finishing touches on its 10-year master parks plan, based on community input, and will present it to the City Council in October, with a vote on final approval set for November.
