Halperin Park, a new five-acre deck park built over I-35 beside the Dallas Zoo in Oak Cliff, opens to the public this weekend and city and development leaders, including Hudson Henley, are betting it will jump-start new projects, bring visitors, and reconnect neighborhoods around South Ewing and Marsalis avenues in Dallas.
The park sits above Interstate 35 and occupies space between South Ewing and Marsalis avenues, designed to create a continuous neighborhood edge where highway lanes once split the community. It includes a large children’s play area themed as a “treehouse in the woods,” several water features, and open spaces sized for concerts, festivals, and community gatherings. That variety aims to make the park useful every day, not just on special event weekends.
Halperin Park opens after years of planning, fundraising, and a public-private partnership that officials say totals roughly $300 million in investments tied to the project and surrounding work. The Halperin Family Foundation contributed a $23 million naming rights gift that played a big role in moving the project across the finish line. Rather than staging a formal ribbon cutting, the foundation chose a ribbon-tying moment to symbolize the park’s connection to the community.
Developers like Hudson Henley, who has owned property in Oak Cliff for more than a decade, say the park creates an incentive to redevelop nearby land and to design a walkable entertainment district with restaurants, retail, and housing. Henley plans a 200-unit apartment and mixed-use project along Ewing Avenue, just west of the new green space, and he has acquired the City Inn Suites property across the street with plans to clear it and create parking and surface access. Other area developers have signed on to contribute financially to a Halperin Park Public Improvement District to help maintain streetscape and infrastructure improvements.
“It’s been a long time coming. We went through COVID and the slowdown with that and everything. But these people have done a fantastic job,” he said. “It’s really exciting. As you can see, it’s a gorgeous park. It’s going to be a game changer over here.”
Local leaders hope the park will undo decades of highway-driven separation and restore economic activity to Oak Cliff, attracting more visitors to the Dallas Zoo area and supporting neighborhood-serving businesses. The deck park design literally spans the interstate, giving planners room to stitch sidewalks and green space together and to host events that draw consistent foot traffic. Organizers emphasize community use, programming, and maintenance commitments so the park does not become a one-off attraction but a civic asset.
Halperin Park’s opening follows a mix of public funds, philanthropic giving, and developer commitments, and officials note that long-term success depends on coordinated private development nearby. The new projects planned along Ewing Avenue signal that some investors see a favorable shift in risk and demand for housing and retail in Oak Cliff. City voices have been encouraging redevelopment while also saying they want to protect existing residents and ensure improvements serve current neighborhoods as well as newcomers.
The park preview attracted media and local builders, and FOX 4’s Shaun Rabb was on hand to report on the opening and developer plans. Community organizers and developers alike framed the park as a catalyst: a visible, permanent asset that makes it easier to market new housing, restaurants, and entertainment venues to a wider audience. The Halperin Family Foundation’s naming gift and the public-private structure supporting the project were highlighted as examples of how philanthropy and government can partner on large urban projects.
There is a practical side to the optimism: overpasses and caps like this one can raise adjacent property values and create new usable land in places long dominated by freeway infrastructure. But the transformation will take time, and successful districts need more than a park; they need coordinated parking, transit access, small business support, and programming to keep people coming. For now, Halperin Park opens its gates and the area around the Dallas Zoo and South Ewing Avenue will be watched closely as plans move from sketches to construction to real-life foot traffic.
