INDIANAPOLIS — $80 million in grants from the Lilly Endowment are going towards 42 Indy Parks.
James, a third grader, loves playing games at the park with his friends and his nanny, Max Cunningham.
“We’re always checking out the parks here in Indianapolis. He loves going out to all these different places. There’s so many cool facilities,” Cunningham said.
The four grants include:
- $71,900,000 to the City of Indianapolis Department of Parks & Recreation to support improvements in 42 parks located in all nine townships of Marion County.
- $2,600,000 to the Eagle Creek Park Foundation to support improvements at the westside park.
- $2,500,000 to the Friends of Garfield Park to support improvements at the southside park.
- $3,000,000 to the Holliday Park Foundation to support improvements at the northside park.
The projects align with the Indy Parks’ five-year plan launched in 2017.
This plan prioritizes parks based on geographic diversity, visitation rates and park amenity conditions as well as race, income and other demographics of the census blocks near the park.
"Parks are really important to the life of cities and the Lilly Endowment is coming to our city at a time when we’re recognizing and really investing in parks in a way that supports our communities," Indy Parks Director Phyllis Boyd said.
Improvements include new splash pads and playgrounds as well as re-striping trails and resurfacing courts.
Indy Parks engaged with residents through surveys, stakeholder groups, community advisory committees and public meetings. They found that many residents desired more modern and specialized amenities like water spray grounds, comfort stations, refreshment facilities and competition quality sports fields.
“Lilly Endowment is delighted to add this funding to its long history of support for major capital upgrades to our city’s impressive array of public parks,” Lilly Endowment President Jennett Hill said. “Parks and greenspaces are essential elements of healthy and appealing communities. We were especially pleased to see the broad diversity of park projects that were prioritized for funding by Indy Parks in these grant requests and the level of community input that Indy Parks sought in developing its grant recommendations.”
The project and construction schedule with run through 2025. The grant awards are 14 times the annual Parks capital budget,
Click herefor a summary of each park's project plan.
