City Park visitors will soon be able to explore the long-awaited $7.9 million playground that recreates Colorado’s box canyons, beaver dams and other wild landscapes.
The Nature Play project, which is scheduled to open later this year, has been an integral part of the park’s construction fence since the groundbreaking ceremony in January 2023 – 20 months ago.
Project leaders at the time said the opening was planned for late 2024, but about eight months ago, an employee at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) mistakenly circulated a message saying the opening would take place this summer. DMNS leaders then publicly reaffirmed the original timeline.
“We always said the opening would be in fall 2024, so right now we still need to get the permits and are in the process of making sure all the plants we selected are put in place,” said Jacqueline Altreuter, director of strategic planning at DMNS and head of Nature Play.
“When I saw that (incorrect opening date) during the holidays, I was like, ‘Oh no!’ so we tried to remove it pretty quickly,” she added.
Nature Play is a complex project that goes far beyond the grassy areas typically seen in Denver’s largest park. It aims to simulate miniature versions of the alpine tundra, grassland prairies, wetlands and other unique environments that cover the state.
One of the templates was created 75 years ago when the Denver Botanic Gardens opened in City Park. “They owned some of the areas in the southeast part before they moved to York Street, so there are a lot of leftover plant species still growing there,” Altreuter said. “Restoring these waterways, originally designed by Dutch architect Saco Rienk DeBoer to mimic mountain streams, is a big part of that.”
Nature Play brings together Denver Parks & Recreation and the DMNS for a project six years in the making. The 10-acre, gently rolling strip sits just outside the museum and offers interactive opportunities for children and students to learn how they work, including the process of carefully restoring natural ecosystems, museum officials said.
“Because Nature Play is designed with native Colorado plants, we hope to see the return of insect species not currently found in City Park,” said John Demboski, senior vice president of science at DMNS, in a statement.
Animal tracks from Colorado’s wildlife lead visitors to different areas, be it a wooden swing or the path of the waterway that connects the mini-ecosystems.
“When we asked people to tell us about experiences in nature that were memorable, meaningful and really stuck with them, 98% described something that had to do with water,” Altreuter said. “We live in a dry state, but we are all connected by water and dependent on water, so we wanted this to be an important component.”
So the project was designed to amplify the sounds of rippling water by narrowing the restored waterway in places and adding rocks to create the illusion of a larger stream or river. But Nature Play uses very little water and is fed by a diverted sewer. The same water source irrigates Washington Park and feeds Ferrill Lake in City Park, and it all eventually flows into the South Platte River, according to Denver Parks & Recreation.
So far, visitors to Nature Play have seen only the construction fencing that hides the playground and a new winding walkway designed to deter cyclists from speeding down a pedestrian path. But inside, they’ll soon see hundreds of new trees and plants, a 20-foot-tall sculpture and play structure of a bighorn sheep (Colorado’s official state animal), a slide, a beaver dam to climb, native pollinators, carved wood benches and tableaux inspired by the dozens of dioramas in the museum’s Explore Colorado gallery.
Many of the playground’s features came from the 800 people surveyed in 2021, and teams had to rethink things at times, such as when researchers discovered a native bee colony they didn’t want to disturb or relocate. Flexibility during the project, which began last year, has allowed designer Dig Studios to adapt to changing conditions, officials said.
About 70% of the site was made up of existing trees that had to be worked around, but only one tree was removed, Altreuter said (and that was because it had died). The fact that squirrels, hawks, foxes and rabbits frequently visited the site reassured ECI Site Construction workers that they had not disturbed the habitat – at least not too much.
“There’s a lot of thoughtfulness and artistry in this space,” Altreuter said, noting that the Loveland artist known as Chainsaw Mama made wooden benches specifically for the project. “We want to connect the museum and its mission to the park, and so many opportunities to do that come together here.”
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