Phoenix is About to Transform its Own Version of Central Park

NEXT DOORS

{ahead of the curve}

PHOENIX IS ABOUT TO TRANSFORM ITS OWN VERSION OF CENTRAL PARK

I jokingly tell people you can claim you are an Arizona native if you were here before construction of Interstate 10 was done through Phoenix. As hard as it may be for newbies to believe, back in the day you had to actually take surface streets to traverse Phoenix from east to west.

The I-10 was completed in the late 1980s, and it wasn’t without controversy. The route of the freeway, as you know, cuts through the heart of the city. Residents of central Phoenix had significant concerns about noise created by the new superhighway. So the planners came up with a fairly unique solution — build a tunnel in a place without a hill.

Thus, the Deck Park Tunnel was born as well as Margaret T. Hance Park, which was designed to take the artificial real estate created by the tunnel and create a lush new