Inside Harold Simmons Park, the 250-Acre Project Reshaping the Trinity River — and What It Could Mean for the Neighborhoods Around It

If you’ve driven along Commerce Street just west of downtown lately, you’ve probably noticed something other than the usual levees and dirt. That’s Harold Simmons Park, a 250-acre park under construction along the Trinity River, and its very first marquee attraction is currently being built roughly 5,000 miles away.

The Play Cove’s Towers Are Being Built 5,000 Miles Away

The park’s first big feature, known as the Play Cove, centers on six massive two-story towers connected by suspension bridges, forming an immersive play space visitors will be able to walk between. Those towers are being fabricated in Germany before making the trip across the Atlantic for installation in Dallas. Trinity Park Conservancy CEO Tony Moore, who’s overseeing the project, has described the design as towers people can walk between, tower to tower, on connecting bridges — the kind of thing that’s genuinely rare to see built for a Texas park.

A Park Four Times the Size of Klyde Warren

For scale: the West Overlook, just the first section of the park, already covers 22 cleared acres — about four times the size of Klyde Warren Park, the deck park most Dallasites know well from connecting Uptown to downtown. The full Harold Simmons Park, stretching between the Ronald Kirk Pedestrian Bridge and the Margaret McDermott Bridge, will span 250 acres once complete, with nearly 2,000 mature trees planted alongside existing trees the project is working to preserve.

What’s Driving a $325-350 Million Project

The park is named for the late Dallas businessman Harold Simmons, whose widow, Annette Simmons, donated $50 million toward its creation. Reported project costs have ranged from roughly $325 million to $350 million depending on the source and how recently it was reported — not unusual for a project of this scale as it moves through construction. City officials have projected 4 to 6 million visitors a year once complete, along with 600 new jobs. Construction broke ground in April 2025, and if the current schedule holds, the first phase — including the Play Cove — is expected to open by the end of 2028.

Growth Along the River Comes With Real Conversations

It’s worth being honest about the fuller picture here: growth along this stretch of the Trinity River borders West Dallas, an area that’s already seen real change as downtown development has pushed across the river over the past decade. Trinity Park Conservancy leadership has acknowledged that growth like this can come with displacement pressure for existing residents, and has said mitigating that is part of the organization’s stated mission alongside building the park itself. That’s a genuine tension worth knowing about, not just a footnote.

What This Means for Nearby Neighborhoods

When Klyde Warren Park opened in 2012, it became a visible driver of demand in the Uptown and Downtown Dallas blocks around it — restaurants, residential development, and foot traffic all followed. Harold Simmons Park is a much bigger bet in the same spirit, and it borders several distinct pockets at once: downtown, the Cedars, and West Dallas. It’s still early enough in construction that none of those areas have fully priced in what a 250-acre destination park on their doorstep could eventually mean — which makes this one worth watching well before 2028.

FAQ

What Is Harold Simmons Park? Harold Simmons Park is a 250-acre park under construction along the Trinity River in central Dallas, between the Ronald Kirk Pedestrian Bridge and the Margaret McDermott Bridge. It’s being developed by the nonprofit Trinity Park Conservancy.

When Will Harold Simmons Park Open? Construction broke ground in April 2025. If the schedule holds, the first phase — including the park’s marquee Play Cove attraction — is expected to open by the end of 2028.

How Big Is Harold Simmons Park Compared to Klyde Warren Park? The West Overlook alone, just the first section of Harold Simmons Park, covers about 22 acres — roughly four times the size of Klyde Warren Park. The completed park will span 250 acres in total.

Whether you’re curious what a project like this could mean for a neighborhood you already call home, or you’re thinking ahead to where Dallas is headed next, we’d love to talk through it with you.

Let’s connect.

Blog Article by Janelle Rawlston | with Mosaic RE Group at Compass, Kaity Gonzalez and Kristi Stacy

Let Mosaic RE Group guide you through your next move, and make your experience seamless. Call us at 469-360-2161 or email us at mosaicregroup@compass.com.

The Dallas Park That's Partly Being Built in Germany