On May 16, riders lined up at Cummings Family Park for a jump jam and pro demos, celebrating a bike park that had just reopened after a full rebuild. A few weeks earlier and a few miles away, the Folsom City Council was still working through a park design that residents had already rejected in two earlier rounds.
Both got local headlines this spring. Both get called "new parks coming to Folsom." For anyone living in Hillcrest at Empire Ranch, that shorthand is doing a lot of hiding. One of these projects is done. Another just cleared its first real hurdle after nearly two decades. A third is somewhere in between, moving at the ordinary pace of city planning, which is its own kind of story once you've seen what "ordinary" gets compared against.
The gap between those timelines isn't about park size or importance. It's about how each project got funded and how much agreement it needed before anyone could pour concrete.
The one that's already open
The Folsom Bike Park at Cummings Family Park reopened on May 16 after a full rebuild led by trail builders Randy Spangler and Greg Watts, the same team behind riding destinations around the country. The rebuild was driven by a partnership between the city, the Folsom Auburn Trail Riders Action Coalition, and a batch of private money that included a lead gift from Claudia Cummings and more than $31,000 raised by the local riding community itself.
That funding structure is the whole reason this park moved fast. It didn't need a land dedication, a new environmental review, or a multi-year design consensus. It needed cash and a construction crew, and once FATRAC and the city lined up both, the work went from planning to grand reopening in a matter of months. The park is open daily from dawn to 9 p.m., non-motorized bikes only, helmets required, and it closes during wet conditions to protect the riding surface.
If you live in Hillcrest and you've been meaning to check it out, there's nothing left to wait for. This is the version of "new park" that's actually usable this weekend.
The one moving at a normal pace
A few miles north on Empire Ranch Road, a different kind of new park is working through the standard municipal sequence, and it's worth watching precisely because it shows what "normal" looks like in this part of Folsom.
The 10.75-acre site once labeled Neighborhood Park #1 got its permanent name in March, after a public call for suggestions drew 131 submissions. City staff narrowed the list to four finalists, Golden Vista Park, Hawk Ridge Park, Jackrabbit Hill Park, and Sanjivini Park, before the council settled on Jackrabbit Hill Park at its March 10 meeting. Two community workshops at Alder Creek Elementary School shaped the early design input, and the Parks and Recreation Commission approved the park's master development plan on May 5, sending it to City Council for final consideration on May 26.
That's a park moving through the process the way city planning documents assume parks move: workshops, a naming process, a commission vote, then a council vote that was calendared for May 26. No fundraising campaign, no public fight over the design. As of the most recent city planning update available, no construction date had been attached yet, which is normal at this stage. A master development plan is a layout and amenity roadmap, not a permit to build, so even a clean council approval this spring would only mean design and engineering come next, not shovels in the ground.
The one that took almost twenty years to get this far
Then there's Benevento Family Park, and this is where the timeline stops looking like patience and starts looking like a case study.
The site, formerly known as Empire Ranch Park Site #51, sits at Broadstone Parkway and Carpenter Hill Road, next to Vista del Lago High School. It's the third of six parks planned for the Empire Ranch area, and on April 28 the Folsom City Council voted unanimously, 5 to 0, to approve its master development plan after what local reporting described as nearly two decades of anticipation, revisions, and sharply divided public debate. Earlier versions presented in September and October of last year didn't survive resident feedback, sending staff back to revise the plan and expand outreach before this spring's vote.
"This park has to be one and done," Councilmember Sarah Aquino said just before making the motion to approve.
That line captures the stakes better than any staff report could. Nine of the site's 19 acres will actually be developed, with the rest held in reserve. The approved concept includes a natural surface trail circling a pond with a fishing dock and two lighted sand volleyball courts, both listed as additive alternates, meaning they get built only if the budget allows once bidding comes in. The council's April vote approved a concept-level roadmap, not construction drawings. Final design, engineering, environmental review, and construction bidding are still ahead, which means the actual groundbreaking is still an open question even after two decades of debate finally produced a plan everyone could live with.
Same season, three different clocks
| Project | What happened this year | What's still ahead |
|---|---|---|
| Folsom Bike Park | Reopened May 16 after a private-and-public rebuild | Nothing. It's open now. |
| Jackrabbit Hill Park | Named in March, master plan cleared commission May 5 | Council review, then design and construction, no date set |
| Benevento Family Park | Master plan approved April 28 after two rejected drafts | Final design, environmental review, construction bidding |
The pattern holds up under a second test too. It isn't limited to parks.
The interchange tells the same story
A few weeks ago, on August 11, the Folsom City Council approved a routine but telling agreement with Caltrans to keep preliminary work moving on the Empire Ranch Road interchange, a planned four-lane connection to Highway 50 between the existing East Bidwell Street interchange and the Latrobe Road interchange in El Dorado Hills. The city first studied this interchange back in 2006, then shelved the work when funding shifted to the Folsom Lake Crossing project. It came back to life in 2016 when Caltrans identified leftover federal grant money still available for the city's use. Nearly two decades after the first study, the project remains in its preconstruction phase. This month's council action didn't approve construction. It authorized the city to keep applying for reimbursement while the design and environmental work continues.
That's the same shape as Benevento Park: a big, promised piece of infrastructure that keeps getting studied, paused, and revived, moving forward only when a specific funding mechanism, in this case leftover federal grant dollars, gives it a reason to.
What this actually means if you live here
If you're in Hillcrest at Empire Ranch and you've seen the headlines about "new parks in Folsom" this year, the practical read is this: ride the bike park now, because it's finished and it isn't waiting on anyone. Watch for the next design and engineering update on Jackrabbit Hill Park, since its council review already happened this spring and the project is moving into the phase where an actual construction timeline gets set. And treat Benevento Park and the Empire Ranch Road interchange as long-range plans worth knowing about, not near-term changes to your daily routine. A unanimous council vote after two decades of debate is real progress. It is not the same as a ribbon cutting.
The neighborhood's older anchor, Empire Ranch Golf Club, isn't going anywhere in the meantime. But the newer recreation options around it are arriving on three separate clocks, and knowing which clock you're actually looking at is the difference between planning a Saturday morning and waiting for one that isn't scheduled yet.
If you're weighing what any of this means for a home in Hillcrest or elsewhere around Empire Ranch, Jackson Lundy Group tracks these local shifts as part of how we advise both buyers and sellers in this market. Reach out anytime you want a grounded read on what's changing here and what it's worth to your plans.
