Oklahoma City celebrates completion of Scissortail Park

A three-day party celebrated the completion of the MAPS 3 Scissortail Park with the opening of the 30-acre Lower Park on September 23.

Two years after the upper portion of downtown’s Scissortail Park opened to much fanfare, construction on the lower portion is now complete.

The celebration kicked off Friday, September 23, with a free evening concert by the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and ribbon cutting featuring Mayor Holt, and ran through Sunday, September 25.

The Park’s completion officially tied together what has been planned for decades as part of MAPS: connecting the core of downtown Oklahoma City to the shore of the Oklahoma River, often referred to as “Core to Shore.”

"What people are going to see is just a continuation of a great park." 

The Lower Park offers visitors a plethora of natural scenery and outdoor activities, including a walking trail, a hands-on nature area with climbing features for children, basketball and pickleball courts, an artificial turf soccer field and futsal court. There is also an overlook hill on the south end of the Lower Park where visitors can get a scenic view of not only the Lower Park but also downtown Oklahoma City.

“One of the cool things about the Lower Park is that we were able to keep a lot of existing trees, So, there is an area that already feels very mature with large trees that are in there and lots of shade,” said David Todd, MAPS Program Manager for the City of Oklahoma City.

One feature in the Lower Park similar to the Upper Park is the paved Promenade located on the east side of the Upper Park but now continues over I-40 through the Skydance Bridge and into the Lower Park. Other similarities exist between the upper and lower parts of Scissortail Park, including several pavilions, but the main difference people will notice right off the bat are the athletic courts and fields. Todd said the landscape architect, along with input from the Citizen Advisory Board, Scissortail Park Subcommittee and the City, ultimately determined what amenities would be built or included in the Lower Park.

“Please don’t envision that this entire park is sports courts, because it’s not. Probably only about 20% of it is. A significant amount of the park is similar to the Upper Park,” he said.

In addition to the various activities and events that took place during opening weekend, visitors were able to purchase food from the various food trucks on hand. They also got to enjoy other activities such as sports demonstrations, yoga, live music and more.

With the development of the Upper Park, several businesses have sprung up on the outskirts of the park over the last couple of years, including the Social Capital restaurant on the west side and the Omni Hotel on the east side. And, of course, the Oklahoma City Convention Center was also built directly east of the Upper Park. Officials hope the new portion of the park will generate even more development south of I-40 along Harvey Avenue and South Robinson.

“We would hope that this [extension of Scissortail Park] would spur new development in those areas as well. We don’t actually plan that, but projects like this tend to do just that,” Todd said.

“What people are going to see is just a continuation of a great park. And this is really the combination of the vision of Core to Shore, taken from downtown all the way down to the river. Now you can make that connection easily.”

This story originally appeared in the September 2022 edition of the VeloCity newsletter.