Lawrence Park in the Heights Gets $2 Million Upgrade as Houston Starts $60 Million Park Program

Construction has started on Lawrence Park in the Heights, where the Houston Parks Board and Mayor John Whitmire turned dirt Thursday to launch Let's Play Houston, a $60 million public-private effort to upgrade 25 neighborhood parks across the city.

The Lawrence Park project is budgeted at roughly $2 million, according to the Houston Parks Board. Plans call for new playground equipment, a fitness area and a paved plaza with seating and water detention. The work also will improve access to the park and to the nearby MKT Trail.

The Houston Parks Board said Let's Play Houston is the largest investment in neighborhood parks in Houston history. The city is contributing $11 million to the initiative, with the remaining money coming from private and public partners.

Houston has more than 180 neighborhood parks, but the city ranks 69th among the nation's 100 largest cities for its park system, according to the Trust for Public Land's 2026 ParkScore index. The index measures acreage, access, investment, amenities and park space equity.

Houston performs especially poorly in the investment category, scoring 35 out of 100 in the study. The Trust for Public Land reported that the city spends $137 in total park dollars per resident, compared with $154 across the 100 largest cities it reviewed.

Let's Play Houston builds on a similar funding model that already improved 23 neighborhood parks in 2024, according to the Houston Parks Board. The new initiative expands that work to another round of parks, with the Houston Parks Board managing community engagement, design and construction.

Lawrence Park sits near the MKT Trail, a hiking and biking route that connects several Heights neighborhoods to downtown. The park improvements are designed to strengthen that connection by making the trail easier to reach from the park itself.

The Houston Parks Board released a rendering showing how the park could look after construction, though it cautioned that the playground image is for illustration purposes. Equipment and colors may change during the procurement process, the board said.

Four more parks are expected to move into construction soon: Greenwood, Andover, Haviland and Montie Beach. The Houston Parks Board is maintaining a list of all parks in the Let's Play Houston program and their current project stages on its website.