Buchanan Park
A Gathering Place for the Future

A dedicated team of your neighbors is now master planning Buchanan Park – an area that will soon be Evergreen’s premier gathering place. With their insight, your input, and the help of land planning professionals, we will have a design in 2007 of a park “for the people and by the people.”

Most of the land extending from the ponds south of Buchanan Rec to Bergen Park and the RTD Park and Ride to the north was initially slated for commercial development. But in the early 1990’s, a few forward-thinking Evergreen citizens began envisioning a community park in north Evergreen adjacent to the proposed Buchanan Rec Center. We can be grateful that those community activists worked together to successfully save the land for public use. Bond issues passed by mountain area residents in 1994, 2000 and 2005 appropriated funds for the Evergreen Park and Recreation District (EPRD) to purchase nearly 41 acres directly south of Bergen Park, a 25-acre parcel which is owned by Denver Mountain Parks. Combined, they total a 66-acre planning area.

The Evergreen Land Community Coalition (ELCC), a nonprofit organization, formed in 1999. They convened a citizen-based steering committee, and worked with professional land planning consultants to determine the community’s preferences for optimum use of the land. ELCC presented the Buchanan Park Master Plan to the EPRD Board in October, 2001. Its recommendations included open space, trails, picnic areas, sculptures, gardens, a community center, an outdoor performance area, and a small, natural amphitheater. With the final land acquisition almost complete, planning for the park is now underway. In April, 2006, the EPRD Board resolved to formally charter a Planning Committee “to organize a community wide process to revisit the key assumptions included in the Master Plan, recommend any needed changes… and provide implementable specifics as to its size, scope, funding and timing of uses and improvements envisioned in the Master Plan area.”