Published: Fri, February 1, 2019
The lake at Scissortail Park is set to be completed and filled this month, and plans are progressing for an opening in late September that will include four days of festivities, including concerts and a parade.
During an update provided Thursday night, Scissortail Park Foundation director Maureen Heffernan also announced the enclosed area of the park’s restaurant is being expanded to ensure it can be open year-round.
Brian Bogert, whose Social Order Dining Collective operates The Jones Assembly, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop and Texadelphia, unveiled the name, “Spark” and logo for the park cafe which will feature hamburgers and frozen custard.
“It’s retro cool, and it mimics the shape of the lantern of the cafe and its colors,” Heffernan said. “Inside it has a diner kind of feel.”
Bogert’s partner at The Jones Assembly, Graham Colton, is working with the park foundation to book concerts at the amphitheater. Heffernan said while the opening is being pushed back to a few weeks, the boathouse and rollerskating rink may be part of an earlier soft opening.
Scissortail Park consists of two sections, the 40-acre upper park between Interstate 40 and the Oklahoma City Boulevard and the 30-acre lower park, south of the highway and north of the Oklahoma River. The land for the lower park, once filled with car parts dealers and scrap yards, has all been acquired and cleared. It is set to open in 2021.
The combined 70 acres, connected with the Skydance bridge over I-40, will be the largest park in the city when completed. The $139 million park is funded through MAPS 3 and will be across the street from the MAPS 3-funded convention center and a 17-story, 605-room Omni both under construction and set to open in 2020.
Most of the structures built in the upper park are complete or nearing completion and include an amphitheater stage, boathouse, cafe, a block-long fountain and a 240-foot-long pedestrian bridge spanning the lake.
Landscaping also is well underway with 300 of the more than 900 trees already planted.
The only part of the upper park that might be completed after the opening is Taking Flight, a sphere made from 643,648 highly polished discs sized to Oklahoma City’s population and colored to echo the coppery hue of Oklahoma’s soil.
With the opening just months away, Heffernan said she is busy hiring staff.
“We now have eight full-time people hired,” Heffernan said. “We’re doing all the foundation work now on website, development and raising money for operations and programming. We’re making good progress. We’re ready to step in as soon as the contractors are done to start mowing, watering, landscaping and maintenance.”