Belo Garden Park is a public

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

located in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, United States. The park is located between Main and Commerce, east of Griffin in the Main Street District. The park, formerly a parking lot, features perennial gardens, shaded groves, plaza spaces, an interactive fountain, a 10’ high hill which provides topographical relief and views over the central fountain plaza, and a shaded garden grove with movable tables and chairs. In 2006

Belo Corporation Belo Corporation was a Dallas-based media company that owned 20 commercial broadcasting television stations and three regional 24-hour cable news television channels. The company was previously known as A. H. Belo Corporation after one of the ...

(the owners of Dallas-area ABC affiliate

WFAA WFAA (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Decatur-licensed Estrella TV affiliate KMPX (channel 29), ...

and

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

) committed $6.5 million toward the $14.5 million construction of the park. It is one of several downtown parks planned by the City of Dallas, which include

Main Street Garden Park Main Street Garden Park is a public park located in downtown Dallas, Texas, United States The $17.4 million park was primarily funded through the City of Dallas’ 2003 and 2006 bond programs and is the first of several planned downtown core p ...

and

Pacific Plaza Park Pacific Plaza Park is a public park located in downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The park is located between St. Paul Street and Harwood Street, north of Pacific Avenue in the City Center District, and opened to the public Oct. 14, 2019. ...

. Although scheduled for groundbreaking in 2008 the timeline was delayed due to the discovery of contaminated soil. Soil removal began in July 2010, and the park was re-scheduled to open in early 2012. Belo Garden's design has been the center of local controversy. A 12-foot wall separating the park from the adjacent Metropolitan Building was included for reasons including traffic protection and noise isolation. Professionals called this feature unneeded and anti-urban, but a resolution with Belo was not reached.

Shooting

On July 7, 2016, Belo Garden became the scene of a mass shooting targeting police officers. Five officers were killed and eight others injured by

sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...

fire. It is the deadliest attack on U.S. law enforcement since the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

References

External links

*
Dallas Parks Master Plan
{dead link, date=October 2016 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes
Hargreaves Associates
Buildings and structures in Dallas Parks in Dallas