Montgomery Parks’ effort to enliven a lightly used White Flint park will begin next week with an event designed for kids on spring break.
“Touch a Truck at Wall Park,” set for 9 a.m.-noon on Friday, April 10, will let kids touch, climb and explore Parks equipment including a backhoe loader, dump truck, fork lift and police cruiser.
It’s set for the parking lot of the 12-acre park and Kennedy Shriver Aquatic Center (5900 Executive Boulevard).
Councilmember Roger Berliner and local civic leaders have asked Montgomery Parks to provide some interim and immediate uses to make Wall Park more inviting.
Eventually, the plan is to expand the park over the surface parking lot for the swim center. Wall Park would then become the central civic green for a redeveloping White Flint/Pike District area.
But that is dependent on a lengthy process that includes the county and a neighboring developer to agree on how to divide up the costs of a planned parking garage.
Until then, Friends of White Flint Executive Director Amy Ginsburg and others in the group have suggested weekly grill nights, improved exercise facilities, a walking trail around the perimeter of the park, a new interactive art piece, temporary skateboard ramps or even pop-up dog parks.
At a Friends of White Flint meeting last week, Parks officials said they are on board when it comes to low-cost interim options that might be of use when the park expands.
