The previous City Park Master Plan (City Park 2018) was approved in March 2005 and has guided the improvements of the Park over the last decade and a half. The prior plan largely focused on improvements to the south side of the Park.
Now, City Park Conservancy is embarking on a plan that will foster an innovative and thoughtful long-term proposal for City Park grounded in serving the greater good, addressing community needs, preserving historical and cultural context, enhancing environmental resiliency, and fostering a welcoming sense of place.
In February 2023, CPC published a Request for Proposal for master planning, which garnered submissions from firms around the world. After conducting in-person interviews with the top firms, CPC and City Park Improvement Association (CPIA) boards voted unanimously in the hiring of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. (MVVA). MVVA is one of the most-highly regarded landscape-architecture firms in the world, having rejuvenated, designed, and built hundreds of public spaces in the United States and abroad since its founding in 1982.
MVVA is leading CPC’s planning process, which will steward the Park throughout the next century. MVVA will rely on its own design experts, with the help of local consultants and community members to develop a community centered City Park Plan that everyone can be proud of.
In August 2024, through a public RFP process, Concordia was selected to join the City Park Planning team as the lead Community Engagement consultant to help strengthen a continued community engagement process. Concordia is a New Orleans based firm with over 40 years of experience in architecture, planning, and community engagement.
This plan is made possible through a lead gift from the Greg Keller Foundation.
City Park Plan Structure:
The framework for public engagement and planning over the next year will be iterative and built on community feedback, research, and planning work completed since the current planning process began in July 2023. The collaborative work to date has revealed two layers of planning that structure the City Park Master Plan design process: Foundational Planning and Place-Making Planning.
The following months of engagement and planning intends to build on these two layers of planning, grounded in a process-based metaphor that all New Orleans residents know and love — Making Gumbo:
Visit the Community Input page to learn more about the engagement process so far and how you can participate!
CPC wants to hear your vision for the future of City Park. Public engagement is a key component to the planning process and you can stay up to date on input opportunities here.
Voices of our youth community (15-25 age group) critical to informing the Park’s planning process
Residents who represent the broad spectrum of New Orleanians to act as ambassadors for the Park’s planning process
We want you to be informed. Stay engaged with the process, and explore the most-commonly asked questions, here.
MVVA believes in the rejuvenating power of landscape. They work at all scales, from small gardens to public parks and regional master plans.