On a recent warm evening at Phil Chacon Park, the hot summer day gave way to cooler breezes as the sun set behind distant clouds. A handful of families with young children enjoyed the big playground, including the red and gold jungle gym shaped like an Asian dragon.
A little more than a year since its re-opening, Phil Chacon Park is thriving as its advocates hoped it would. But the success of the park’s renovations was not guaranteed.
Located on the southeastern side of the International District, where the neighborhood blends into Trumbull Village, the park had fallen into neglect before closing in 2022. Some feared that despite the makeover, the 20-acre space would once again descend into its previous squalor.
“We are not seeing the encampments and folks taking over the park that people were worried about,” said City Councilor Nichole Rogers, whose District 6 includes the park.
“I got a lot of pushback about a $9.6 million investment in that park, and that ‘people are just going to mess it up,’ but that’s not at all what we’re seeing,” Rogers said. “We’re seeing quite the opposite.”
In 2022, the City of Albuquerque also closed Coronado Park. Once little-used, the patch of green along 3rd Street NW in the shadow of Interstate 40 had become a site of encampments and drug use. After the closure of Coronado Park, an uptick of similar activity happened at parks elsewhere in the city, including Phil Chacon.
In August that year, KOB reported on parents concerned about unauthorized persons on the campus of nearby Van Buren Middle School. Phil Chacon Park had become increasingly littered, including dangerous trash like needles and broken glass.
The park’s natural aspects were in a state of neglect. Prairie dog holes dotted the large open space in the middle of the park. Dead trees and bushes created a vacant-lot ambience. The city finally closed Phil Chacon Park so as to wipe the slate clean and start over.
“Parks have to be seen as investments, just like libraries or schools or streets, and when we do them correctly, and we make good, strong investments, they really pay off for the community,” said David Simon, Director of Parks and Recreation for the city of Albuquerque.
The park’s decrepit irrigation systems were replaced with a new one that conserves water that the City was able to buy thanks to a roughly $980,000 grant from the Water Trust Board, a program of the New Mexico Finance Authority that typically funds larger infrastructure, such as dams or wells.
“This broke new ground because the Water Trust Board had not historically
made grants to projects like this,” Simon said. “But we applied under the theory that when we make upgrades to our irrigation system, we're going to save millions of gallons of water.”
Simon estimates that the current systems use about 15-20 percent less water than more basic systems would to provide the same amount of irrigation.
“That means over 10 millions of gallons a year we will be saving in water, just here at Phil Chacon,” Simon said. The makeover included the planting of 359 trees.
The park’s new amenities include a partially shaded playground, notable for its dragon, a nod to the neighborhood’s large Asian communities. Other features include a BMX track, athletic fields and courts, a dog park, a disc golf area, and a nascent community garden.
“We still need to build out the garden, so that’s starting (this month) to do some raised bed gardens,” Rogers said. She also mentioned that the fruit trees planted last year, modeled after other urban fruit forests, should be producing their first harvest by the end of this summer.
Another major development in the life of Phil Chacon park could be on the way, if funding comes through.
“There’s still a little bit of lot size, after the garden, to the wall where the houses are,” Rogers said, referring to the park’s northeastern corner. “We have it slated for housing, for public housing, which is exciting, with a community bike shop in the development.”
Rogers said an application for a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Choice Neighborhood grant is pending, and results should be known later this year. If awarded, Rogers said the Phil Chacon site could be one of three new public housing developments in District 6.
“How amazing would it be to actually live on that park that is your front yard?” Rogers said.
Whether that grant is awarded or not, Phil Chacon Park is already fulfilling its purpose in the neighborhood. The park has hosted two International Fests, along with many other community gatherings and youth sports.
Simon said eight years ago, Albuquerque’s park system ranked 37th nationally among the top 100 cities’ park systems. Now it’s 15th.
“Albuquerque has so many wonderful characteristics,” he said. “And enormous potential, and when we maximize that potential, you can see the results in parks and trails and open space. I think Phil Chacon Park is going to be a place that I hope will produce benefits for generations of Burqueños.”
