America’s golden age for parks is translating into gilded surroundings, according to panelists at a concurrent session at the ULI Fall Meeting.

Klyde Warren Park, a 5.2-acre (2.1 ha) deck park built over the recessed Woodall Rodgers Freeway in Dallas, has received national recognition as the winner of the 2014 ULI Urban Open Space Award.

Columbus Commons and Scioto Mile - Columbus, Ohio

Sante Fe, New Mexico

Washington Park, Cincinnati Ohio

Two parks have been selected as winning projects in the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Urban Open Space Award competition: The Parks and Waterfront at Southeast False Creek, located in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Yards Park, located in Washington, D.C.

What for a decade had been referred to either as the “Bloomingdale Trail” or simply “the Bloomingdale” will be referred to going forward as “the 606,” it was announced in June by the Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national nonprofit organization that conserves land for public open space. The number denotes the zip-code prefix shared by all Chicagoans and alludes to the trail’s origin as a rail line.

The designer of West Philadelphia’s Cira Centre, architect Cesar Pelli talked about the role of place making in two of his current projects at a recent ULI conference in Philadelphia.

Major changes resulted both directly and indirectly from the University of Pennsylvania’s 2004 purchase of a U.S. Postal Service property adjacent to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, according to speakers at ULI’s “Place Making 2013: New Drivers, New Partners” conference in June.

This year’s finalists for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Urban Open Space Award are the Yards Park in Washington, D.C.; Wilmington Waterfront Park in Wilmington, Calif.; Cumberland Park in Nashville, Tenn.; Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York, N.Y.; and the Village on False Creek in Vancouver, British Columbia.