Ask a Waco newcomer or old-timer about favorite Waco spots to visit, and there’s a good chance it’s somewhere in Cameron Park.
Now the City of Waco is doubling down on park investments large and small, with projects underway set to be finished this year in South Waco, in China Spring and on Austin Avenue. Those include Waco’s largest park investment to date: Alice Martinez Rodriguez park on the old Floyd Casey Stadium grounds.
Here’s what you need to know about the progress of those parks and what amenities they will provide.
Alice Martinez Rodriguez Park
The 30-acre, $25 million Alice Martinez Rodriguez Park is the marquee park of the bunch. It is located at the intersection of 32nd Street and Clay Avenue along Waco Creek, adjacent to the Cordova Springs mixed-use development now under construction.
The core of the park will feature an inclusive playground for people of all abilities, plus a skatepark, splashpad, community lawn, sports courts and more.
That core is set for completion in December.
“We’re on budget and on schedule,” Sterling Hill of the Cumming Group told the Waco City Council on Feb. 17. The firm was contracted to manage the park project.
Site plans also call for remodeling the adjacent Hart-Patterson Track Complex, which formerly served as the home of Baylor University track and field programs.
Waco Parks and Recreation Director Jonathan Cook said the final scope of work for the track project will go before the council in April, with plans to complete the project by the beginning of track season in 2027.
China Spring Park
Construction has begun on China Spring’s first neighborhood park on an 85-acre tract along Flat Rock and Skeet Eason Roads.
Residents can expect a playground, splashpad and pavilion connecting to a nature-trail network, which will plug into adjacent subdivisions, providing car-free access to the grounds. Council members approved the addition of a ball court and bathrooms to the plan in November, at a cost of $218,000. Cook told the Bridge on a Wednesday call that construction on the park should wrap up toward the end of the year. There is the potential to use the remaining 35 acres of city-owned property to expand the park further down the line, Cook said, “but there’s not a defined second phase yet.”
Virginia DuPuy Park
What you might know as “the long parking lot next to Pinewood Coffee Bar” will soon be named Virginia DuPuy Park, after the civic leader who served as Waco’s mayor from 2005 to 2010.
The 1.3-acre parcel located at Austin Avenue and 32nd Street was purchased by the City of Waco for $307,000 in June. Council members approved a $400,000 budget for landscaping, seating, sidewalk repairs and food truck hook-ups.
The park will be located within the strip of grass and trees abutting the parking lot, which Cook said won’t be affected by the project. The property was formerly home to office buildings but could not be redeveloped because it is in a floodplain.
Cook said the park could open as soon as this fall. Council members approved the park’s name at the Feb. 17 meeting. “It’s a little smaller than what our typical neighborhood park would be, but you see this a lot more, especially in larger, denser cities, where these little urban green spaces are really a unique and successful project,” Cook said. “We’re going to stretch that $400,000 as far as we can.”
Correction, Feb. 23, 2026, 11:29 a.m. Central:
This story has been changed to correct the years that Virginia DuPuy served as mayor. It was 2005 to 2010.
