Flood Park

Menlo Park, CA

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Building on the collaborative engagement effort for Realize Flood Park, the revitalized landscape and park amenity improvements bring together a new unified vision that meets the ecological and social needs of the San Mateo community. Flood Park restores this neighborhood open space asset with a light and respectful design touch – preserving urban ecology through historical tree preservation, introducing a new successional tree planting and grasslands, while creating new recreational and social programming.

A Unified Design Enhancing Social + Preserving Ecological Value

The layout of the new pathways and amenities has been updated based on the idea of a ‘more open and flowing experience’ that responds to existing trees and buildings. A focal element and several community gathering spaces have been incorporated to create a dynamic new ‘heart of the park.’ The existing playground is currently under construction and toggles its footprint carefully around trees and blends inclusive and adventure play experiences. In many ways, this new park design is a response to the existing urban ecology and historic tree canopy.

The revised landscape plan honors the community’s interest in preserving native trees and the oak woodland by reconfiguring the layout of facilities and pathways to reduce the removal of existing heritage trees. Of the site’s 739 trees, only 7 percent were removed, and only 3.5 percent were native.

All social programming, both active and passive, is designed with tree preservation in mind. Most of the recreational facilities and multi-use fields have been relocated to preserve native trees and create better flow by grouping complimentary amenities together. The multi-use fields have been reconfigured and consolidated in the northern part of the park - this choice will preserve the 'heart of the oak woodland' and create a more cohesive and flexible field configuration. The other existing reservable and drop-in picnic areas will be relocated throughout the park and will be redesigned to allow for better access. The revised landscape plan preserves existing reservation and drop-in picnic site quantity and capacity.

Flood-13_Wide_3840x2160 — Flood Park project team at the Phase 1 park opening in June 2025. The team is huddled around one of the significant Oaks, downed in a storm, but still alive and newly preserved with custom metal supports.

Flood Park’s urban forest and historic canopy include exceptional trees that predate the urbanization of the San Francisco Peninsula and provide significant ecological value. However, there are many threats to the health of the forest, including natural tree decline, climate change, and plant disease. In addition to providing new and improved amenities, the renovation of the park presents a once in a generation opportunity to enhance the canopy and increase habitat value within the park. The first Phase of improvements also involved a comprehensive utility upgrade for water, irrigation, electrical, and sewer across the entire park – requiring careful trenching and combined utility design.

Flood Park is more than an amenity rich recreational space for the community; together, with the San Mateo County Parks Department, the design team protected the mature canopy and integrated new trees and shrubs to build resiliency in the urban forest and increase the habitat value of the park by restoring grassland areas.