This year’s Park(ing) Day will use its themes of food and play to celebrate the Lawrence Farmers Market and encourage the community to rethink downtown urban spaces.
Park(ing) Day is a global event geared at reclaiming urban, developed environments.
Lawrence’s local initiative from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25 will take over five parking spaces on Eighth Street between Massachusetts and New Hampshire streets to create a small public park.
Community members are encouraged to bring picnic lunches or take out food from local businesses to enjoy in the temporary park, alongside installations and games.
Thom Allen, a professor of practice in KU’s School of Public Affairs & Administration, said food and play felt like a natural theme for the year.
Students in his honors course, Sustainability & Society, netted a $5,500 grant from the Douglas County Community Foundation to support the Lawrence Farmers Market. Some of that money is going to Park(ing) Day, as well.
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Through the grant, students are aiding the market with its St. Patrick’s Day parade floats, as well as wayfinding at the Saturday markets. Allen said 400 reusable, market-branded milk crates will be one of the more eye-catching parks of this year’s Park(ing) Day installation — ultimately, those will provide temporary seating at the weekly market.
“They allow us to quickly create seating, gathering spaces, and other temporary structures while also reinforcing the project’s focus on reuse and responsible consumption,” he said.
Three out of the five spaces for Park(ing) Day will be designed and run by KU students from Allen’s classes and design clubs on campus. Multistudio, a downtown architecture and design firm, and the Lawrence Coalition for Safe Streets will operate the other two.
Allen said that through the project, students have learned about the market’s bid to have a permanent pavilion in South Park, and its importance to the Lawrence community.
“I think that’s what the students really got out of this, is that … we could start to support them in different ways to make sure that they have a permanent home,” he said.
Emily Lysen, director of development for the farmers market, said she hopes folks will be inspired to imagine a permanent location for the market while visiting the pop-up on Friday.
“Each week, our market turns an empty parking lot into a colorful, bustling community gathering using tents, tables, and chairs. Park(ing) Day explores turning an empty parking spot into a gathering space using milk crates, for just one day,” she said via email. “This is a great way to show the students and the broader community how much effort goes into building something from scratch 33 Saturdays a year.”
Allen said Park(ing) Day isn’t necessarily about advocating for reduced parking spaces, but brainstorming what to do with underutilized portions of downtown Lawrence. He referenced downtown restaurants’ patio parklets as an example.
“I think what we’ve noticed is some of these downtown businesses that have taken over parking for their restaurants have been super super effective,” he said. “And I think they’ve really created a sense of place for downtown for a lot of people.”
Park(ing) Day is an impermanent intervention in the downtown urban landscape, but Allen hopes it will start a conversation “about how we maximize the space downtown for the betterment of everyone” while being sensitive to every party’s needs.
“I hope it inspires people to continue to be interactive with our downtown spaces and understand how fun and exciting they can be,” he said.
Post updated at 11:20 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at [email protected].
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