Holiday Park Belongs to Tennis Players and Concertgoers Until the Playground Returns

At Holiday Park this fall, the playground and the western portion of the dog park are closed for construction, and they stay closed into 2027. The adult side of the park is open and in its best shape in years. The Jimmy Evert Tennis Center just received a national award. War Memorial Auditorium has four shows booked for the second half of October. If you live in Victoria Park, just across Federal Highway and Sunrise Boulevard, how much this construction affects you comes down to whether you go to the park with a stroller, a leash, a racquet or a concert ticket.

The rest of this guide is sorted that way, starting with what's closed and why.

What is closed, and for how long

Holiday Park covers 93.44 acres. Its Parks Bond project is budgeted at $20,950,000 and is split into four phases. Phase 1 is finished: the tennis center renovation and the athletic field lighting upgrades. Phase 2 covers shade for the baseball fields, a new playground, furnishings, lighting, ADA work and trail work. Phase 3 is a splash pad with a restroom building, and Phase 4 adds pickleball courts.

Phase 2 is the one under way now. The city broke ground on it in late May, according to a May 31, 2026 Sun Sentinel report. The contractor is Lunacon Construction Group. The city's construction notice lists the impacts plainly:

The playground area will be closed for the duration of construction. The existing dog park will be closed May 26-28, 2026. The western portion of the existing dog park will be closed for the duration of construction. The existing walking paths will be impacted and detours will be indicated.

The reopening date depends on which part of the city's page you read. The text says completion is expected by summer 2027, weather permitting. The flyer graphic posted on the same page says construction runs through fall 2027. If your family's plans depend on the new playground, plan around the later date and treat summer as a bonus.

The city's capital projects tracker is also out of date. It still says Phase 2 is waiting on a preconstruction notice to proceed. The city's FY2027 preliminary budget, by contrast, says Phase 2 construction began in FY2026 and lists completion as an FY2027 goal.

The work happens between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and the city warns of higher noise during those hours. The park itself is still open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., so a walk after 5 p.m. avoids the noise, although the path detours stay in place around the clock.

The side of the park that just got better

The tennis center is where the bond money has already been spent, and it shows. The Jimmy Evert Tennis Center renovation cost about $9.5 million. The city put in roughly $8 million and the Orange Bowl gave $1.5 million. The work produced 20 clay courts, the 700-seat Chris Evert Stadium Court, LED lighting, shade structures, renovated restrooms and upgraded paths. The center reopened in October 2025, a year ago this month. On September 1, 2026, the city announced that it had won the USTA's 2026 Outstanding Facility Award.

The center has stayed open even during maintenance. Court restoration ran from September 28 to October 3, 2026, with limited court availability, and the facility remained open the whole time. Posted hours are 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends. The restoration window ended on Saturday, October 3, so this week is the first full week with every court back in play.

War Memorial Auditorium is the park's other adult venue. It isn't new this year: it reopened in November 2024 as a 44,000-square-foot hall with 3,500 general-admission capacity and a seated mezzanine. The second half of October is busy there, and it's all within walking distance of Victoria Park:

1. Knocked Loose and Denzel Curry, Saturday, October 17, 7 p.m.
2. Turnpike Troubadours, Friday, October 23, 7 p.m.
3. Niko Moon, Saturday, October 24, 8 p.m.
4. Hush: A Silent Night, Saturday, October 31, 9 p.m.

The venue's calendar shows cancellations elsewhere on its schedule, so check a show's listing the week of the event.

The park's other listed amenities are not part of the posted closures. They include the lighted athletic fields, the gymnasium, the recreation center, basketball, racquetball, the roller hockey rink, shuffleboard and the Bridge Club. The Phase 2 notice lists only the playground, part of the dog park and the walking paths.

Where the stroller and the leash go instead

These are the places that do the jobs the closed areas usually do. Each one is listed with its current status, since several Fort Lauderdale parks are in their own bond phases.

Peter Feldman Park is the most useful entry on the table for families. An earlier city update had its renovated playground scheduled to reopen before mid-March 2026. That makes it the newest play equipment near Victoria Park while Holiday Park's is closed.

For dogs, the city's notice closes only the western portion of the Holiday Park dog park, not the whole thing. A small dog with a short daily routine may do fine in the eastern side. Bigger dogs that need room to run may be better served at Riverside or Snyder. At Snyder, the separate nature trail has been closed since 2024, and the Sun Sentinel reported that repairs aren't expected until 2028. The Bark Park itself is not affected.

Leashed dogs are allowed in city parks in general, on a leash of six feet or shorter. City rules keep dogs out of playgrounds, athletic fields and splash pads.

For a walk by the water without play equipment, Annie Beck Park has open areas, a walking path and waterfront.

The bigger build rising inside the same park

The playground work is the smallest construction project in Holiday Park right now. The KC Cross Family YMCA and a Broward Health freestanding emergency room are being built in the park together. The YMCA's own location page describes the combined facility as 60,000 square feet, including a 12,000-square-foot emergency room, and says it opens in 2027. Earlier news coverage gave smaller figures for the YMCA building alone. The first concrete was poured on May 6, 2026, more than 700 cubic yards for the foundation perimeter and column footings. The Sun Sentinel reported the cost at $35 million for the YMCA and $18 million for the emergency department, with a planned 250-space parking lot.

The YMCA and the new playground are both scheduled for 2027. If both stay on schedule, the parts of the park built for families will reopen in the same year, alongside a new YMCA.

Parking is the piece most likely to change how you get into the park, and it has the least certain timeline. On July 2, 2026, the City Commission approved an interim agreement with Holiday Park Parking Partners LLC. The agreement covers two things:

• Phase I: surface-lot improvements, capped at $4,961,539, plus an optional $1,384,350 for Southern LauderTrail improvements.
• Phase II: $3,731,400 in predevelopment work for a possible multilevel municipal garage with a Fire Rescue/EMS substation inside and a privately financed rooftop vertiport, plus an optional $716,725 for Northern LauderTrail improvements along NE 8th Street, from Federal Highway to War Memorial Auditorium. The city's preliminary target cost for delivering the garage is $38,483,011.

The agreement does not commit the city to building the garage, and anything past the interim phase needs a further agreement and another Commission approval. On August 18, the Commission adopted a resolution stating its intent to issue parking revenue bonds and to reimburse up to $32 million in garage costs. Issuing those bonds still requires a later approval. Both documents describe approvals that are still to come, not a construction start.

The splash pad and restroom building are Phase 3 of the bond project, and the pickleball courts are Phase 4. The current Phase 2 notice doesn't include either one.

Construction this close to Victoria Park also comes up when you're pricing a home here, from a buyer's questions about parking to how you describe the area around a listing. Lauren Kahn Group tracks the Holiday Park timeline street by street. Contact Lauren for a personalized market consultation on how the park's 2027 reopening fits your plans.