Shaping a Vision for a New Park on the Santa Fe Railyard (NM)

SANTA FE, NM – Community efforts to create a new park at the Santa Fe Railyard continue with a volunteer clean up day at the site. Clean up and other restoration activities will take place Saturday morning July 15, from 7:00am to 12:00 noon. Volunteers are asked to meet and register at the parking area next to SITE Santa Fe at 1606 Paseo de Peralta on the morning of the event. For more information regarding the clean up event, volunteers and the media may contact Brian Drypolcher with the Trust for Public Land at 988-5922, or Gilda Monta?o with the city of Santa Fe and Santa Fe Beautiful at 955-2215.

The ten-acre stretch of open land adjoining Cerrillos Road between Guadalupe Street and St. Francis Drive is destined to become a vibrant gathering space for the Santa Fe community. Together, the park and a Railyard plaza, connected by tree-lined walkways, will define the new public spaces at the Railyard. The park will become a place where families and friends come to connect with one another and to find respite in an island of natural beauty at the city’s center.

Taking steps toward this vision, the Trust for Public Land – a national, nonprofit land conservation organization – is collaborating with the city of Santa Fe, tenants at the Railyard, and a variety of community organizations to sponsor a series of activities and events on the park property. The purpose of this “experimental programming” is to encourage the people of Santa Fe to start using the property, and to participate in shaping the park’s future design and development.

One of the inaugural events on the park property is the site clean up day scheduled for July 15. Volunteers are needed to help with a range of land restoration activities that will include trash removal, beautification, erosion control, placing strawbales for seating and other site improvements. Those wishing to help are asked to come with a sun hat, sunscreen, tools like shovels and rakes (labeled with owner’s name), wheelbarrows and work gloves. Snacks, drinking water and other refreshments will be provided.

Organizations contributing people and other resources to the clean up effort are: the Trust for Public Land, the City of Santa Fe, Santa Fe Beautiful, Santa Fe Southern Railway, Acequia Madre Community Ditch Association, Friends of the Park, El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market, SITE Santa Fe, Warehouse 21 – Teen Art Center, Santa Fe Cider, Coca-Cola Bottling of Santa Fe, Payne’s Nurseries and Whole Foods Market.

Santa Fe Southern Railway will give each volunteer a coupon for one free ride on the Scenic Day Train. (Reservations are required for this round trip excursion that includes a short layover in Lamy.)

Other program experiments planned for the park property over the coming months include land restoration activities and demonstration gardening projects; creating gathering places for picnics and other social events; and building an open air stage for musical performances, theater and story telling.