Imagine Your Parks 3 - Parks with a Purpose

In 2004, we teamed up with you to dream big. Frankly, the BREC park system was aging and offered East Baton Rouge Parish many small neighborhood parks and a few special use facilities including sports facilities, Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center, Farr Park Equestrian Center and Magnolia Mound historic house. BREC’s leadership had a vision for much more and held more than 140 meetings with park visitors, stakeholders, partners and elected officials. The result was the first Imagine Your Parks plan which began the transformation of the system into one with 12 large community parks in every area of the parish, splash pads, dog parks, a growing trails system, larger playgrounds, new conservation areas and much more. The plan was updated again ten years later and now includes transformational projects such as the reimagination of the Zoo and Greenwood Community Park, expanded and air-conditioned recreation centers, the Lakes Project, the Bicycle/Pedestrian Master Plan and so many others. We are ecstatic that all of your input and our hard work brought a national Gold Medal back to East Baton Rouge for the third time in our history. 

With the input of residents from all across the parish, BREC devised the third Imagine Your Parks plan for the next decade. Imagine Your Parks 3 (IYP3) is BREC's ten-year roadmap and action plan for reinvesting and enhancing parks and recreation across East Baton Rouge Parish. The plan is guided by five guiding principles with supporting goals and recommendations to achieve them. The implementation roadmap lays the groundwork for delivering on these principles. 

Input from residents showed that 82% of survey respondents visited BREC parks in the last year with 80% of those responders rating the overall condition of those parks as either good or excellent.