Salt Lake City celebrated the completion of Donner Trail Park's revitalization on Thursday, unveiling new playgrounds, water-wise landscaping, a walking pathway, public art and the city's first municipal memorial tree grove at the 14.27-acre East Bench park. The four-month renovation transforms a park named for the Donner-Reed Party, the ill-fated group of pioneers who passed through nearby Emigration Canyon in August 1846, a year before Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.
The overhaul at 2903 Kennedy Drive was funded through Salt Lake City's $85 million Parks, Trails and Open Space General Obligation Bond, which voters approved in November 2022 and which property owners are repaying through a 20-year tax schedule, according to the City of Salt Lake City. Park improvements and public art at Donner Trail received $870,000 from that bond, as reported by KSL.com. The bond itself represents the largest single public lands investment package in the city's history, funding eight major park projects across Salt Lake City.
A New Kind of Memorial in the East Bench
The Donner Trail Park Memorial Tree Grove, financed with an additional $434,000 through the city's Capital Improvement Program, is Salt Lake City's first official municipal memorial tree grove, managed by the city's Urban Forestry division. The grove will eventually hold 83 trees spanning 17 species, and residents can reserve a tree for a $380 donation to dedicate it to a loved one, a group, or a significant historical event, per the same KSL.com report.
“People can donate and have loved ones or a special moment memorialized with the planting of a tree,” said Tony Gliot, Salt Lake City's urban forester, in comments reported by KSL.com. Online reservations opened Thursday, and donors will receive a formal commemoration certificate along with access to a digital registry launching in spring 2027 that will publish the story behind each dedication, according to Salt Lake City's Urban Forestry division. The first mass plantings are planned around Arbor Day on April 30, 2027.
Art Designed to Shift as the Park Grows
The park's redesign also debuts “Journey Lines,” a public art installation by Portland-based artist Adam Kuby that incorporates 16 stone and steel elements meant to represent journeys connected to Salt Lake City, creating pathways inspired by movement through canyons and mountain corridors. The project marks the first public art installation funded through the city's General Obligation Bond allocation for public art — a dedicated 1.5% Percent for Art policy embedded in the 2022 bond, according to the Salt Lake City Arts Council.
Kuby was selected in spring 2024 from a national pool of 115 applicants evaluated by the Salt Lake Art Design Board, with the choice later approved by Mayor Erin Mendenhall, the arts council notes. The installation's stone elements sit adjacent to fast-growing trees and sloped earth berms, designed to physically shift as those trees mature — a deliberate nod to natural entropy that will play out gradually over decades.
Shaped by Years of Public Input
The final design reflects two rounds of public engagement between May 2023 and late 2024, during which Salt Lake City Public Lands says residents specifically asked for expanded tree canopy, updated playgrounds serving varied age groups, and preserved mountain views. That survey feedback directly shaped the playground equipment selections and landscape layout, the city says. The renovation also modernized the park's irrigation system to improve water efficiency and sustain the new water-wise landscaping alongside the memorial grove, a step KSL-TV reports supports the city's broader push to lower municipal water consumption.
The Donner Trail Park project fits within the goals of Salt Lake City's 2022 “Reimagine Nature” Public Lands Master Plan, a 20-year framework shaped by feedback from more than 12,000 residents and the city's first comprehensive public lands master plan adopted in three decades. City officials say the revitalized park is intended to give residents more opportunities to play, walk, gather and connect with nature.
Donner Trail Park joins a growing list of bond-funded makeovers across the city, including the reopened Steenblik Park in Rose Park and a seven-piece public art trail connecting Fairmont Park to McClelland Street in Sugar House, both financed through the same 2022 bond package.
