A woman walks her grandson in a stroller. A pair of friends compete to see who can do the most pull-ups. A young couple new to the neighborhood introduce themselves to long-time residents. Dogs chase frisbees.

It’s a typical afternoon at Mitchell Park, a popular public space at the eastern edge of the Mountain First Neighborhood. Neighbors working together and with the City of Tucson have shaped the park into an attractive community space, and more improvements are coming in 2025.

Many people in the neighborhood and from surrounding areas come to Mitchell park to walk and play with their dogs in the mornings and at sundown. Families visit its two playgrounds with their children, browse books at a Little Free Library and exercise under tall pine and mesquite trees or at an exercise course. There are grills and picnic tables for celebrating birthday parties and other gatherings.

Fabiola Bedoya grew up in the neighborhood and visits almost every day with her six-year-old son even though they no longer live there. She likes that the park is small and approachable.

“You just kind of get to know people here on a daily basis,” she said.

Phil Franchine has lived across the street from the park for 11 years and is an active part of the community the park encourages. He said it is a place where people can relax outside of work and meet people.

He often practices chi gong there, “which is kind of a cousin of tai chi,” he said. “And at times, I’ll bring my guitar and practice music and singing.”

“In the last two years, I’ve had a weekly singing circle doing global chant, which is spiritual and or uplifting songs from a variety of different traditions,” he added.

In 2013, the neighborhood used Conserve2Enhance (C2E) grant funds to work with the City of Tucson to replace 9,000 square feet of turf in the park with native vegetation and make other improvements, including a rainwater collection basin to collect runoff from nearby streets. A sign at the basin explains the project and shares information about it and photos of the wildlife native to the area to the community on the park’s conservation efforts.

Sarah Studd is an ecologist with the National Park Service who has lived in the neighborhood since 2000. She began volunteering with the neighborhood association nine years ago and is now its president.

“I like that the park is really small and tucked away in the neighborhood and has kind of a different feel from a bigger city park,” she said.
Because of her work, she especially notices changes to the plants – a significant cluster of trees at the southern point of the park has died out due to age and has never been replaced.

Studd said neighbors have worked with the city on improvements. For example, the neighborhood association found a welder in the neighborhood to create a message board that the city then installed in the park.

The neighborhood has also guided the city in installing a shade structure over the children’s playground.

“The original size of shade that they had proposed was quite small, and then we were able to provide some feedback and ask for it to be made bigger, and that ended up happening,” Studd said. “Another time when our voices were heard by the city, which felt good.”

The shade structure is part of park improvements included in the Tucson Delivers Proposition 407, a $225 million bond package voters approved in 2018.

The proposition also includes work on an improved irrigation system and the construction of a ramada. Work on both should begin in 2025.

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.