It used to be an underused, aging downtown park. Now, it’s full of life and fun all week
In early 2020, the city of Wichita had just completed a dramatic redesign of Naftzger Park, which until 2018 had been an underused space set back from the street behind a gate. Its highlights were an aging gazebo and a little pond.
Those tasked with scheduling activities for the newly renovated park — which thanks to a $3.9 million makeover had expansive green space, spouting water fountains, a big covered stage and a massive LED screen — had put on one concert and had a ribbon cutting scheduled when, on March 12, 2020, COVID-19 shut the whole city down. Everything was canceled, and the new park was dark for months.
Now, 16 months later, the new Naftzger Park, which sits on roughly one acre on the 600 block of East Douglas, has become one of the city’s most popular hangout spots, and over the course of the summer, it’s been filled with activities almost every day and evening.
Just since June, the park has been home to country concerts, rock concerts, symphony concerts and a ballet performance. It’s hosted story times for kids, exercise classes, a couple of markets, a big Pride Month celebration, a laser light show and some live movie screenings, including a showing of the 1980s hit “The Goonies” last weekend.
It’ll be busy again this weekend, filled on Friday night with Festive ICT’s Margaritas and Mojitos event and on Sunday with a screening of the Rudy Love documentary “This is Love.”
Even on the rare night when nothing is scheduled, organizers say, the park is still full of life. Residents of nearby downtown apartments play with their dogs on the lawn. People meet up for picnics. Sometimes, musicians hop on the stage and perform spontaneously.
The new “urban park” has exceeded expectations, says Jessie Hartke, who along with staffers at the Wichita Park and Recreation Department schedules its events. And she thinks that part of its success can be attributed to the restlessness Wichitans built up during those months in 2020 and early 2021 that they were stuck in their homes.
“I keep saying that we came out to a different city,” Hartke said. “I feel like people realize what’s important, and it’s not necessarily something you can go to the store and buy. Our sense of community has been renewed.”
Debut, then shut down
COVID-19 was weeks away from disrupting life in February 2020 when the Wichita City Council chose Adam and Jessie Hartke and their Wave venue to do event planning and control alcohol sales at the park, which is bordered by the new Spaghetti Works District, a collection of apartments, restaurants and other businesses.
Jessie Hartke took over the responsibility of scheduling activities with a goal of offering three or four diverse attractions every week. She was to split scheduling duties with the Wichita Park and Recreation Department, which would put on its own events as well.
Her goal pre-pandemic was to schedule the kinds of activities that would bring the community together, but during the course of a chaotic 2020, that goal came into clearer focus.
“This last year has had so many awful things happen, with the pandemic and all the social justice issues,” she said. “Our society wasn’t terribly cohesive to begin with, and it feels like everything fractured drastically more in 2020.”
The park, which features parking for food trucks, benches with built-in mini-tables, and a big lawn made up of half artificial turf and half real grass, was cleared by the city to start offering events again in September. The planners started off slowly, being mindful of COVID-19 precautions. Katie Dawes, the assistant recreation supervisor at the park department who is Hartke’s planning counterpart in the city, said she’d go out early and set up “social distancing squares” to help families stay spaced out properly during story times and exercise classes.
But as more people got vaccinated, the park became even more active. Hartke said she and her crew are now constantly brainstorming events that will get people to the park. But they’re coming on their own, too, riding scooters, playing Hacky Sack and letting their kids run around after a meal at a nearby restaurant.
“We want to keep it inclusive,” she said. “We want to be able to have parts of our community who didn’t always feel like they had a space to find events that are interesting to them.”
The Hartkes also are passionate boosters of the local music scene, Hartke said, and showcasing local musicians is also a focus. Many more concerts are planned for the space, including a ticketed show coming up on Aug. 29 featuring The Electric Six. (Most events will be free, though, she said.) The park also will be home in September to the annual ICT Fest, a local music festival that has been staged at different venues around town over the years.
Dawes, who plans more of the day-time park events, said her focus is finding activities that appeal to all ages. Events she has coming up include a polka party for kids on Monday morning and a family movie and game night on Aug. 6
She said that city officials — who said they wanted the park to have a feel similar to Kansas City’s Power & Light District — feel like the park is going over better with the city than they even expected.
It’s given downtown a whole new active vibe and is attracting people who don’t often venture downtown.
“It feels like we came out of COVID and hit the ground running,” Dawes said. “We went from zero to 100 very quickly with the amount of people we’ve been getting at the park and the number of events we’ve had there. We’ve been incredibly pleased with the outpouring of support from the community.”
The park’s (much delayed) ribbon cutting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 29, and it will feature remarks from city officials as well as music from the Wichita Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet. There will be yard games, a food truck and a showing of the film “Matilda” following the ribbon cutting.
The best way to follow along with activities planned there, organizers say, is on the park’s Facebook page.
This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 5:01 AM.
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