Primos Park: The New Neighborhood Park Planned on Violet Avenue

Apr 8, 2026 · 6 min read · Violet Park Primos Park Fourmile Canyon Creek Boulder Meadows Parks 80304 Boulder Colorado NoBo ·

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Primos Park: North Boulder's Next Neighborhood Park

Boulder is building a new park on Violet Avenue. It has a name, Primos Park, but it is not built yet. The city named it in June 2024. That was the first time in ten years that Boulder named a new park. The site is 9 acres, between Broadway and 19th Street. The city's timeline is: final design and permits through 2027, building starts in 2028, and the full park opens in 2029.

Where is it? 4501 19th St., Boulder, CO 80304 — on the north side of Violet Avenue, between 19th Street and Broadway, next to the North Boulder Library.

How the Park Got Its Name

"Primos" is Spanish for "cousins." The city says the name shows what neighbors hope for: a place to meet friends and family. The name mixes a Spanish word and an English word. The city says this fit the many people nearby who speak more than one language.

Young people who live next to the site picked the name. "This name was suggested through engaging with middle and high-school youth who live in the adjacent Boulder Meadows manufactured home community and then supported by other neighbors and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board," said Parks and Recreation Director Ali Rhodes. "This marks the city's first park with a Spanglish name." The advisory board approved the name in 2024.

Boulder Meadows is the largest manufactured home community in the city. The park is right beside it. The city calls Primos "an important neighborhood park set aside for residents in North Boulder."

Who Helped Plan It

The city has asked the public for ideas for three years. There were three rounds:

July to September 2023
March and April 2024
2025 to June 2026, ending with an open house where the city showed new sketches

The city also wanted to hear from people who do not often come to city meetings. Parks and Recreation staff worked with local youth, with Growing Up Boulder, and with "community connectors." Connectors are neighbors who talk with other neighbors. They reached people in the nearby manufactured home communities and people with disabilities. One connector is a small business owner who has lived in Boulder since 1993. Another is a former translator who knows Boulder's Nepali community. Another is a young adult in the Boulder Valley School District's Transitions Program. Since fall 2025, the team has also held nature play picnics for families with small children. In summer 2025, young people painted bird houses for the site.

What the Park Will Have

The project page lists the main parts of the plan shown in June 2026:

Creek repair and natural design — to help with floods, bring back more plants and animals, and give bees and wildlife a path through the park
Nature "play pods" — small play areas spread across the park, for children and adults with and without disabilities
An outdoor pavilion — with a play area next to it and space for food trucks
A small amphitheater — for gatherings, outdoor classes and play
A small "Naturehood center" — a place to borrow gear, and maybe a restroom

The city says the park will be open and easy to use for people of all ages, cultures and abilities. The design can still change during the permit stage.

The Creek and the Flood Risk

Fourmile Canyon Creek runs through the site, and floods shape the whole design. About 7 of the 9 acres are in the creek's "high hazard zone." This is the part of a floodplain that gets the deepest water in a flood. The zone also covers part of Violet Avenue. The park design aims to control how water moves through this zone, and to make the zone smaller where it can.

The city has answered neighbors' questions about floods:

The park will not use big flood walls or a lot of concrete. It will help water soak into the ground instead.
Plants and materials will be chosen to survive short floods.
The park will not make flooding worse. But the city cannot yet promise less flood risk for each home. The park is only "a very small section of a more extensive watershed."
Until more work is done downstream, flood water will still flow across Violet Avenue toward Wonderland Creek.
A flood like the one in September 2013 is too big for any reasonable design. The city builds to protect against a 100-year flood.

A separate city project, Fourmile Canyon Creek flood mitigation, looks at the whole creek. It builds on a creek plan the city finished in 2011. Work is also happening nearby. Where Broadway crosses the creek, the city is building a new underpass with extra room for flood water. Until the downstream work is done, a device will hold the flow back so floods behave as they do today.

The city also explains "floodproofing." This is work that home owners can do themselves, such as waterproof windows and doors, to keep flood water out of a building and to protect walls and floors that get wet.

A New Bridge on Violet Avenue

The project will also rebuild the Violet Avenue bridge over Fourmile Canyon Creek, west of 19th Street. The city says the old bridge is "in poor condition and one of the worst-rated bridges in the city."

The new bridge will be bigger and will help carry flood water. The project also adds:

An underpass, so people walking and biking can go under Violet Avenue
A path for walking and biking on the north side of the bridge, next to the park
Parking, sidewalk space and drains on the north side of Violet Avenue
A new water line, a new storm sewer and public art

The new path will connect the park to the North Boulder Library. It will also connect to paths farther west, including the Broadway bridge and underpass over the same creek. The underpass is part of the city's plan for safe, calm walking and biking routes.

Work on the bridge will close Violet Avenue between 19th Street and Broadway to all traffic. There will be a detour, and people who live there will still be able to reach their homes. The road will open again when the bridge is done. The city expects most of the work to finish in mid to late 2029.

The bridge, underpass, path and street work cost $10.5 million. The money comes from the city's Transportation Fund and its Community, Culture, Resilience and Safety Tax. The park also uses money from Utilities, from Parks and Recreation, and from federal grants. It builds on safer access paid for by a Safe Routes to Parks grant in 2024. Three city departments are working on it together: Transportation and Mobility, Parks and Recreation, and Utilities.

Practical Information

Address: 4501 19th St., Boulder, CO 80304 (Violet Avenue between 19th Street and Broadway)
Status: Still being designed. Building starts in 2028. The full park opens in 2029.
Size: About 9 acres
Phone: Boulder Parks and Recreation, (303) 413-7200. For Spanish, press 9.
Updates: Primos Park Project, City of Boulder. You can sign up for email updates there.

The site will look the same until 2028. If you live near Violet Avenue, sign up for the city's emails to hear about the last design steps and the road closure.