Carpio-Sanguinette Park & Heron Pond Open Space opened on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, at 1401 E. 54th Ave. in Globeville. It covers 80 acres. The city says Heron Pond is now the largest natural area in the Denver Parks system. At the ribbon-cutting, Mayor Mike Johnston said, "It is extremely rare that a city as developed as Denver adds a park of this size."
The size explains the headlines. The design explains the place. The project started as a stormwater basin and became a regional park later, over more than ten years. Much of what you'll walk past was already on the site: an old treatment plant, a pond that once collected toxic sludge, and wetland that nature had taken back on its own. Instead of clearing it all away, the designers built the park around it.
Four Parcels Under One Name
On a map it reads as one park. On the ground it's four separate pieces that have been joined together and modernized, according to the Denver Post:
- Heller Open Space on the west side
- Heron Pond on the north side, the protected natural area that has drawn birds and birdwatchers for decades
- Carpio-Sanguinette Park on the south side, which was Northside Park before it was renamed
- About 20 acres to the east, bought by the Denver Wastewater Group for stormwater management
The new pieces include a regional playground, a picnic shelter with a restroom, a small amphitheater, a BMX pump track, and paths that run through all 80 acres to a nature overlook tower. The amphitheater has its own stage power for live music. The Post reports that the park's edge was designed for food trucks, art festivals, and live music.
The Concrete Stayed, and So Did the Paint
The most unusual feature is also the oldest. The graffiti-covered concrete of the former Northside Wastewater Treatment Facility was preserved as part of the park. Neighborhood residents chose to keep the graffiti walls. With provisional approval from Denver Parks & Recreation, people can still paint on them, and officials say they'll monitor to keep the paint on the walls.
Gretchen Wilson is a landscape architect with Dig Studio, the Denver firm that also redesigned downtown's 16th Street. She told the Post the walls are "community history, and some Denver artists even got their start here." Old infrastructure was reused in smaller ways too. Some planters around the retention pools are slices of concrete drainpipe.
Wilson gave the clearest summary of the approach. The park's edges are still industrial, and the team debated whether to screen that out or fight it. "But once you're inside it, you really get a sense of how unique it is. So we worked with it." Smokestacks and warehouses are visible from the paths. The view changes as you walk, from native prairie grasses to a constructed wetland planted with xeric trees and shrubs.
The Basin Is the Park
You can't see the stormwater system as a separate feature, because the stormwater system is the ground you're walking on. Runoff from more than 700 acres of surrounding land is treated here before it reaches the South Platte River. The city's release calls it a 15-acre system. The Denver Gazette quoted project leads describing nine acres of stormwater landscape that can treat up to 6 million gallons in a 100-year storm. Either way, a large share of the park also does daily water-quality work.
That's also why the project could be paid for. The construction phase went in order:
- June to July 2022: crews mobilized and stormwater infrastructure construction began.
- Spring 2024: stormwater work was finished, including two forebays, a trash vault, two parking lots, and paving on Emerson Street and parts of East 51st and 52nd avenues.
- January 2025: park improvements began on top of that base.
- Sept. 26, 2026: opening day.
The project page puts the investment at more than $39 million. The city's release gives $44 million, which also covers the vision plan and design. Funding came from Denver's Park Legacy Fund, wastewater enterprise funds at the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, and grants from Great Outdoors Colorado, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the Colorado Health Foundation, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and Adams County Open Space. Cinceré Eades of Denver Parks & Recreation has spent 10 of her 15 years with the department on this project. She told the Post that the wastewater enterprise fund "helped build it and address a lot of the damage from contamination."
Some of the work happened underground. Wilson told the Gazette that the team removed more lead from the area excavated for the water-quality facility. City health staff advised during construction on what could be dug up and what should stay in place.
The Herons Were Here First
Wilson remembered exploring the site on her bike years ago: "Nature really took over in some areas, so we didn't have to do anything there." The pond at the north end is the part that was kept most intact. It now has a new bird blind and an observation tower. The Audubon Society served on the project's steering committee to protect the bird-friendly features.
The eBird hotspot for Heron Pond shows what a fall or winter visit can turn up. These are individual dated checklists, not a migration schedule:
| Checklist date | Species recorded |
|---|---|
| Oct. 4, 2026 | Canada Goose, Gadwall, American Wigeon, Mallard, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron |
| Nov. 9, 2025 | Mallard, Green-winged Teal, Hooded Merganser, Great Blue Heron |
| Nov. 12, 2025 | Gadwall, Ring-billed Gull |
The November records were logged while the site was still under construction. This winter will be the first one with the new paths, blind, and tower open.
Denver Field Ornithologists has one outing scheduled: Heron Pond Natural Area / Heller Open Space on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, from 7:30 to 10:45 a.m. It's rated easy and limited to 10 people. The route circles the pond and marshes, crosses the fields of Heller Open Space, and heads south to Carpio-Sanguinette Park and the South Platte. The group meets at the parking area and turnaround at 53rd and Franklin. When the page was checked, nine of the ten spots were taken, so look at the registration page before you plan around it. The trip notes call for long pants and good shoes or boots because the route includes a little bushwhacking.
The Names Tell the Same Story
The name kept something too. Globeville residents started the push to rename Northside Park in early 2016, and City Council approved it unanimously in October 2017.
Sal Carpio was one of Denver's first Latino city council members. In 1976 he wrote the Registered Neighborhood Notification Ordinance, which gave neighborhood organizations a formal role in land-use decisions. He also helped secure the money to buy the land that became Northside Park. The Sanguinette family settled in Globeville in the 1850s, farmed there, ran a grocery, and opposed upstream slaughterhouses dumping waste into the South Platte. Wilson told the Gazette that Carpio's fight against meatpacking waste near the river inspired the design team throughout. Eades also named a resident as one of the strongest recent voices for environmental justice and health improvements in the area.
The cleanup in this area started in 1994, more than thirty years before the park opened. Parts of the park sit inside the Asarco Globe Cleanup Site. The city says those areas have been remediated to remove or contain the contamination.
Getting In
- From the south: the park can now be reached from the 51st Avenue bridge on new paved, accessible paths. Heron Pond sits near East 51st Avenue and Emerson Street.
- Parking: a new lot sits a few dozen yards north of the National Western Center, next to the picnic shelter and gathering area.
- For the pond: the Field Ornithologists meet at the parking area and turnaround at 53rd and Franklin, reached from Washington Street by way of 54th Avenue and Franklin Street.
- Rules and hours: read the posted signs. Earlier reporting described fishing and soil-disturbance limits at the pond. The published post-opening coverage doesn't say whether those limits still apply.
The city's project page links to opening-day photos and the 2017 master plan. The master plan shows the boundaries of all four parcels and is useful to look at before a first visit.
New public open space doesn't show up often in a built-out city, and when it does, it affects how nearby neighborhoods are valued over time. If you'd like to talk through what a project like this means for a north Denver purchase or sale, Chad Murray can walk you through how he'd weigh it. Schedule a consultation.
