Last Friday, the first park in Billingsley Company's mixed-use Cypress Waters development in north Dallas was officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Salazar Park, named after former city council member Steve Salazar, is a Studio Outside project meant to primarily serve the corporate tenants in three adjacent office buildings designed by Omniplan Architects.

The sun filtered through the newly-planted ginkgo trees as crowds of people found shade under low-branching live oak trees and three custom-designed park pavilions, one of which sheltered the band playing the event. The park is long and linear, providing a wide open space on one side and a small, enclosed grove of trees and pavilions on the other. The open space and lawn serves as a flexible event space, and also as a gallery of sorts for a wide variety of brightly-colored sculptural benches placed throughout the park.

As tenants start to move into the three-story buildings flanking the park, the maturing trees and shaded pavilions will provide a great place for outdoor meetings or lunches. A decomposed granite path surrounding the park provides a nice track for taking a leisurely morning walk.

There are two more parks to be built along Cypress Waters Blvd just north of Salazar Park and they are similar in scale. These open spaces will provide a recreational and green link between the office and corporate developments and the multifamily and mixed-use areas in Cypress Waters' Town Center. Additionally, a wide hike and bike trail connects the office, retail, multifamily, and mixed use developments to an extensive trail system surrounding North Lake, the largest and most important natural feature on the site.

Salazar Park, as the first open space along the entry sequence, is a welcoming green space that signals the beginning of a balance between buildings and landscape that the entire Cypress Waters development embodies.