Sunnyside loses park, community asks why no one warned them

Breanna Solomon had just launched her walking club in Sunnyside. The first meeting went well. A small group of community members gathered at Grimes Park early in the morning. Solomon said the community members who showed up comprised neighbors who rarely saw each other outside of church and the grocery store. Solomon’s run club at Grimes Park was supposed to be the start of something valuable. But it was one of the last things the walking group did there.

Grimes Park will no longer be open to the residents of the neighborhood. The City of Houston had leased the park from the Houston Independent School District since 1977. On Sept. 1, the school district ended its lease with the city.

HISD will be using the land and the former Grimes Elementary campus next door to build the Southside Launchpad, a $210 million career and educational center expected to serve nearly 4,000 students by the 2028-29 school year. This CTE center is expected to work alongside the Barbara Jordan Career Center, which is currently undergoing renovations and is expected to serve 4,000 students by 2027-28.

Per HISD, the two centers are designed to be within 10-15 minutes of most schools. The park is funded through a public-private partnership with Wells Fargo and Cigna Healthcare, which added new equipment to the park, including a tennis court and lighting. The money was also used to convert an old softball field into a football field.

In 2023, it underwent a $1.3 million renovation. The city is now removing its funding and amenities from the park. During a city council meeting, council members questioned why the city is investing in a property it does not own.

“In the future, we need to look at how we negotiate these contracts,” said council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, who represents District D, where the park is located. “Who wants to go into a house, remodel it, and somebody could just decide that they can come take your home?”

Solomon’s walking club was supposed to turn into a regular meeting to help her neighbors get into shape and for her to lose weight after the birth of her son, during which she gained nearly 100 pounds.

“What I learned from my personal journey is that walking is one of the easiest ways to get active,” Solomon said. “I try to meet people where they are. So instead of trying to go out and get my people fit, I’m just trying to teach them that you don’t have to start with a gym membership. You don’t have to start working out five days a week. You can simply start with a walk.”

What the park meant to the community

The Sunnyside community felt the loss of the park, where children and adults played soccer, and community members walked or ran to stay active.

“The park, especially for those that live around it, is a gathering space,” said Melanie Young, president of the Sunnyside Super Neighborhood. “It’s an event space. It’s a workout space at a place where kids practice and play football. It’s just that it’s a green space for people in that area within Sunnyside to be.”

Young said that the news of the park closing came with no warning. The community was made aware when a community member was on her way to work and saw equipment being removed from the park, Young recalled.

“There is no real alternative,” she told the Defender. “Displacing people from that green space to somewhere that they’d have transportation to go to. A lot of people don’t have cars.”

Travis McGee, a Sunnyside resident and the president of the civic club We The People Of Sunnyside Garden/Bayou Estates and the 72-South Park super neighborhood, who has requested to see the lease agreement between the city and HISD, pressed Whitmire on why the community was not informed of the Grimes Park closure.

McGee’s two sons, who played football at the park, said it provided an alternate way of life for the neighborhood’s kids.

“It gives kids other options than crime and getting into trouble,” McGee said. “So it’s very disheartening for us. For the people and myself as a city leader for the area to put in for the capital improvement request that we’ve been putting in for decades, and we finally get the part, and then they come and just rip it up like it’s not even there. They just tell the residents to just find somewhere else to go, basically.”

Whitmire said the city has no control over HISD’s decision.

“HISD is an independent body,” he said to the Defender’s queries. “They’re not even being operated by an elected body now. So it’s a mystery. The superintendent’s busy doing his thing, but of course, we’re sensitive… We run parks.”

The city should have pushed harder, according to Tracy Stephens, longtime Sunnyside resident and president of the Sunnyside Civic Club, even suggesting eminent domain (the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use).

“When did the city find out and why they ain’t tell the community?” Stephens said. “The council members had town hall meetings out here in Sunnyside. They didn’t say anything about the park being closed. Why y’all didn’t tell us? They can’t answer that.”