Queen Creek’s new dog park opens this month

Queen Creek’s canines will have a new, larger place to frolic and play later this month.

The Founders’ Park Dog Park officially opens with a special celebration from 9 to 10 a.m., Saturday March 21, at 22407 S. Ellsworth Road.

There will be some booths, promotional items and treats for the pups during the opening celebration.

“It’ll be a smaller scale than (other past) park openings, but we still want to bring everybody out to celebrate and share this excitement to open the dog park at Founders’ Park,” Parks and Recreation Director Adam Robinson said.

As with the current dog park, there will be two separate sides and entries for large and active dogs, and small and timid dogs. But in the new park, the large and small dog parks will be clearly separated.

The dog park area itself will double in size compared with the current location. In addition, it will have two large canopies to provide shade to the canines and their humans. Trees are also being planted around the site.

“We’ve created a seating area that’s large enough for people to hang around in or sit in. There are picnic tables in there, as well,” Robinson said. “Hopefully, what that does is move people from standing around in one grass spot and instead kind of congregate around in the shade. Then you give it a few years, and the trees will be grown up, and we’ll have even more shade all the way around the park.”

The new location will also provide more parking. The change Robinson is most excited about is each section of dog park will have a mirror location, or cell, next to it. The cells will open on alternate weeks so one side can get a deep watering and recover as the other side is being used. This will allow for healthy grass year-round.

“We won’t have to close (the dog park) or move it to a different location,” Robinson said. “The idea again being that when one side is closed, that means we’ll be able to do deep watering, irrigation, the kind of maintenance that you can’t do when the dog park is open every single day.”

The current dog park, the Pocket Park for Pups, closed for a month every summer to re-seed and irrigate.

“From a quality of the grass standpoint and access to shade, it’s going to be a way better experience,” Robinson said.

With a new police headquarters being built at the current Pocket Park for Pups location near town hall, the dog hangout had to be moved across the street to Founders’ Park.

The Pocket Park for Pups will permanently close at 10 p.m., Friday, March 20.

Last year, the Queen Creek Town Council established budgets totaling more than $2.9 million for the dog park relocation and replacement playground equipment for Founders’ Park. The new playground area will also open on March 21.

“We’ve got most of (the playground equipment) installed,” Robinson said. “I know if you stand on the outside of the fence, it looks complete, but there’s still the final touches and final inspections, and we’re just getting it all prepped and ready for that March 21 date.”

Moving the dog park to Founders’ Park has necessitated permanently relocating the annual Founders’ Day celebration to Frontier Family Park, 20039 S. 220th St. But that doesn’t make the new configuration of Founders’ Park any less of a community space.

“The focus of the dog park is it’s a social space. It’s not just socialization for the dogs, which is fantastic, and exercise for the dogs, but it also continues to be socialization for Queen Creek residents,” Robinson said. “One of the best parts about a dog park is how it really connects that community.”

Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.