When Gold Star Mothers Memorial Park reopens in the fall of 2028, it is expected to include an elaborate enclosed splash pad and water play area with a design revealed for the first time at a community meeting Wednesday. Though it’s for kids, the adults presenting the play area were excited to share its features – fill-and-spill buckets, a “weeping water” shower, the “directional eyeball,” a burbling “popp dropp,” the “daddy long legs” and an upright water ring to run through.
“This design, we’re super pumped about it,” said Cassie Bethoney, a landscape architect with the design firm Weston & Sampson. “We think it’s such a great opportunity.”
A constantly running stream – standing water can be a concern for parents – flows under a walking bridge in the firm’s tentative design and incorporates little levers where children can manipulate its path to explore cause and effect and “how nature and gravity work,” Bethoney said. Materials will be bound aggregate or cobblestone that mimics a riverbed, and meant to be as long-lasting and maintenance-free as possible.
Not every detail of the splash pad design has been worked out, or questions such as whether the stream will flow 24 hours a day in good weather, “because we’re really just vetting the idea,” Bethoney said.
Like other aspects in the plans, the water features are an attempt to improve on what exists at the 1.5-acre East Cambridge park, which was established in 1968 and last renovated in 2005.
“Plans changed a bit”
Gold Star closed Sept. 10, 2025, after a soil test at the basketball court in preparation for construction found chemical contamination. Samplings from around the park afterward revealed more elevated levels of metals, industrial chemicals and hydrocarbons, “attributed to historic filling and industrial use of the site, as well as a large fire,” said Lee Koska, a Weston & Sampson environmental engineer. The City Council freed up $1 million that year to clear away some contaminated soil and start design work; it approved another $14 million this April to see the project through.
“We were working on the courts, and our plans changed a bit,” Bethoney said. The widespread contamination meant “an opportunity to think about overall project goals and park goals.”
Temporary remediation got the park’s tot lot reopened, but the entire acreage will be dug down 2 feet for installation of a geotextile barrier to seal away contaminants, then see 2 feet of clean replacement fill packed in. Wednesday’s was the fourth community meeting for the park’s renovation and remediation, which Conservation Commission director Jennifer Letourneau was coordinated with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Environmental Protection.
Three park designs were shared in June, winnowed to the single design of this meeting. If the plan is approved, bidding for the project is expected in the first two months of 2027 for construction the following spring, when the full park must close. To open again in the fall of 2028 called for “an aggressive schedule,” Letourneau said.
Bikes and the Grand Junction
The design prepares for the Grand Junction multiuse path to pass through; the trail has been a dream of city planners since at least 2000, saw its first section opened in 2016 and remains mainly elusive – but once in place is expected to be a major north-south bike and pedestrian connection between Boston and Somerville.
The Grand Junction brought the most attention in a Q&A period: The section through Gold Star is planned as 10 feet wide with 2-foot buffers, and commenters hoped it could be widened to match national guidelines of 14 feet.
The path is estimated by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to see 3,000 to 4,000 daily users. “Just thinking about the types of users and the context of that area, I just think it is really important to make sure we provide enough space,” said Chris Cassa, a volunteer with the Cambridge Bike Safety group. “One of the things we hear again and again from people is how uncomfortable it is to be passed by people biking.”
Cara Seiderman, a former transportation program manager for Cambridge, urged bicycle parking at every park entrance and the installation of a Bluebikes rental station. The park adjoins the shopping of the Twin City Plaza, a Cambridge Health Alliance office and the Simoni skating rink.
Bulletin boards and ballfields
The park design mainly keeps Gold Star elements such as its ballfield, playground and courts, memorials and public art, but adds gathering spaces – including a spot for parents to sit where they can keep an eye on multiple kids at once; cafe tables and party spots; and terrace seating overlooking the splash pad that can be used as a miniamphitheater during the off season, when the water is off.
Two “well loved and well used” bulletin boards will be returned to park entrances, said another Weston & Sampson landscape architect, Amanda Gaal, off-leash dogs will be welcomed back and the sports area will maintain its 210-foot outfield to accommodate multiple sports, including Little League, softball and youth soccer. A batting cage, covered dugouts and spectator seating at the ballfield is being added, the designers said.
Though the team has a goal of preserving park trees, 36 of them are planned for removal. Gaal told meeting attendees “we are trying to keep as many mature trees as we can,” and 23 of those that will be taken down were recently planted. “Because they’re so small, and because their removal allows for greater flexibility in the redesign, we felt that this was the moment to remove them and plant in more logical locations.”
The city’s webpage for the Gold Star Mothers Memorial Park Remediation and Improvements Project is here. The next public meeting is in November.
