Downtown Oakland Park has a new place to play. Greenleaf Park opened at 1300 Park Lane East with a full basketball court, tennis and pickleball courts, a playground and a shaded pavilion. The more than $2 million park was built and paid for by a private developer, at no cost to taxpayers.

What is there

Greenleaf Park is compact, and it packs in a lot:

  • A full basketball court.
  • Tennis and pickleball courts, so both camps get a place to play.
  • A playground for younger kids.
  • A shaded pavilion, useful for birthday parties or just a break from the sun.
  • Parking, lighting and new landscaping.

The lighting is the detail regulars will appreciate. In South Florida, the best time to play is often after the sun drops, and courts with lights make a weeknight game possible.

Pickleball is the sport that keeps outgrowing its courts across South Florida, and new public courts tend to fill quickly. Having pickleball sit next to tennis also means mixed groups can show up together: one pair on the tennis court, another on the pickleball side, and the kids on the playground a few steps away. The basketball court gives teenagers somewhere of their own, which is often the hardest thing for a downtown to provide.

A park that arrived before the project

Greenleaf Park was built through a partnership between the City of Oakland Park and Horizon Oakland Park LLC, a joint venture of Falcone Group and Kaufman Lynn Construction. The developer put in more than $2 million to build the park.

Notably, the park opened ahead of the larger Horizon mixed-use project it is tied to. Residents get the park first, rather than waiting for the buildings around it to finish. The city opened it on August 27, and it is already part of the daily routine for people who live and work downtown.

Part of a bigger year for Oakland Park

Greenleaf Park is one piece of a run of good news for the city's public spaces. Oakland Park says it has added more than 30 acres of parks and green space in recent years. In 2026 alone, the new Oakland Park Library opened in July, and Stevens Field and the Richard E. Giusti Heart Par Cours both reopened after improvements.

Each of those projects is modest on its own. Together they add up to a city that has quietly put a great deal into places residents can use for free: a library, ballfields, a fitness course and now a downtown park with courts and a playground. That is the kind of change you notice over a year rather than in a single headline.

For a city that sits between Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors and often gets driven through rather than visited, that is a real shift. Downtown Oakland Park is building the kind of everyday amenities that make people stay a while.

The private funding is also worth noting. A park of this size and with this many amenities would normally come out of a city capital budget. Here, the developer covered it, and the city got a finished park to open to the public.

Greenleaf Park also shows what the city hopes downtown will feel like as Horizon fills in around it: a neighborhood where people can walk to a court, a playground or a pavilion instead of loading the car for a regional park.

How to use it

The park is at 1300 Park Lane East in downtown Oakland Park, with on-site parking. Bring a basketball or a pickleball paddle, or bring the kids and claim the pavilion. If you have been meaning to check out the new library, pair the two: an hour of books, then an hour of play.

For park hours and city recreation programs, check the City of Oakland Park website.