Small but significant Gifford Park improvements

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Gifford Park gets grant for trees

The Gifford Park Neighborhood Association has received a $10,000 grant for a neighborhood tree planting project.

The goal is to visually connect Gifford Park with Bemis and Turner Parks and link the neighborhood business district to the area's major employers - Mutual of Omaha and Creighton University Medical Center.

The project is the first step in a long-range beautification effort to attract home buyers and businesses to the neighborhood, said Ron Frey, association president.

"This grant is important," Frey said. "It will start the momentum."

The money came from the state's Community Enhancement Program, a cooperative effort of the Nebraska Department of Roads, Nebraska Forest Service and Nebraska Statewide Arboretum.

Big Muddy Workshop drew up the plan. It incorporates many of the recommendations made in the Destination Midtown master plan, Frey said.

The Gifford Park neighborhood is bounded by 37th Street on the west, Cuming Street on the north, Interstate 480 on the east and Dodge Street on the south.

The plan calls for trees lining one or both sides of the east-west corridors of Dodge, Davenport, California and Cuming Streets and the north-south corridors of 30th and 33rd Streets.

Consistent landscape treatments along Gifford Park's streetscapes are major components, as is the planting of a variety of tree species, said Brian Pecha, a landscape architect with Big Muddy Workshop.

Frey said the neighborhood also wants to reclaim what it calls "Turner Park North" - a parcel of land bounded by Dodge and Davenport Streets, 31st Street and Interstate 480 - where two unused bridges over 30th Street are scheduled to come down in 2008.

"We want to restore it to parkland, but make it unique - like prairie grassland," Frey said.

Frey said neighborhood leaders will meet with the city and the Statewide Arboretum to determine when, how many and what kind of trees will be planted.

The neighborhood, however, is raring to go.

"We're excited," Frey said. "We're ready to get our hands dirty."