Baker Park is located at 1020 East St. Louis Avenue in Las Vegas, Nevada. Parks are the social hub for communities. Communities that have active, safe, and engaging parks have a very high level of social and neighbor to neighbor interaction.
Baker Park currently houses the Baker Pool, grass soccer fields, and a playground with picnic elements. The park is located within the Southridge Neighborhood adjacent to the historic Beverly Green Neighborhood, and bordered to the east by Fremont Middle School, which shares use of the grass fields and pool for Physical Education classes.
LGA was contracted in November 2015 to focus on improving the park, providing new field turf and lighting improvements at the soccer area, a new splash pad and new playground, reconstructed pool building and renovated pool. The goals for the project were to:
• Create a recreational destination that activates the community
• Create a fun and exciting environment
• Create a unique identity to the overall park/pool facility
• Create a unique theme that has connection to its place
• Design to be respectful to CCSD and Fremont students and faculty.
Working through options with the City of Las Vegas project team, we understood that one of the leading reasons why people travelled to this park was to use the soccer fields. As the soccer fields are not always utilized outside of league hours, the design brings the soccer theme from the fields into the other public areas of the park, the new splash pads, the sports wall practice area, and the orientation plaza with the signature soccer ball sculpture. The soccer theme was also applied to equipment and amenities to create a cohesive environment in the renovated Baker Park.