A ‘one-of-a-kind’ children’s bicycle playground will be constructed in Columbus
A new bicycle park is coming to the city after the Columbus Council approved an agreement allowing MidTown Inc. to construct the project.
Mayor Skip Henderson and the MidTown Inc. board and staff will gather for a groundbreaking ceremony Nov. 19 at 10 a.m. to celebrate the start of creating the MidTown Children’s Bicycle Playground in Dinglewood Park at the intersection of 13th Street and Warren Williams Boulevard.
The park will be a designated area for children and teenagers to learn the basic skills of bicycling and mountain biking with natural trails, bicycle obstacles and other features, according to a presentation on the Nov. 4 Columbus Council meeting agenda.
It is not a BMX riding course or skateboarding park, nor will it have traditional playground equipment such as swings, slides or climbing features, the presentation says.
Origin of MidTown Children’s Bicycle Playground
The idea for the project arose in 2019, when Julio Portillo, executive director of MidTown Inc., and Blake Melton, chair of Standing Boy Trails Inc., began brainstorming a way to give kids a safe, controlled environment to learn the basics of bike riding, Portillo told the Ledger-Enquirer.
“We explored several areas around midtown,” he said, “and we landed here in Dinglewood Park.”
Dinglewood Park’s topography made it perfect for a children’s bicycle playground, Portillo said.
A few months later, the organization secured funds to hire the Internation Mountain Biking Association to produce a plan for the children’s bicycle playground. IMBA had built the Standing Boy Trails.
“One of the great things about this park is it is one-of-a-kind for the Chattahoochee Valley region,” Portillo said. “There is no other bike park like this one within 120 miles of Columbus.”
Other locations have bicycle parks, he said, but they are not like what will be coming to Columbus. The closest park with similar facilities is in Acworth, Georgia, he said.
Details about the MidTown Children’s Bicycle Playground
In the design, the bicycle playground will have a perimeter trail with bridges and other areas where kids can practice bike riding on a natural surface.
Another feature that makes this bike park different is the pump track, Portillo said. It will have a circular and a linear pump track, he said.
“It mimics the pumping up and down in a bicycle when you’re mountain biking,” he said. “So you can get on the pump track, and, in a circle without pedaling, you can do circles on the pump track and get a feel for what going up and down, up and down, feels like.”
The park is designed for children ages 3-4 to teenagers who already know how to ride a bike or a mountain bike, Portillo said.
“It’s designed for all ages,” he said.
Funding for the MidTown Children’s Bicycle Playground
MidTown Inc. started raising money from private donors for the project four years ago, Portillo said. By this year, the project was fully funded and could enter the permitting phase with the city, including maintenance agreements.
“We were fortunate to have local donors who truly embraced the concept,” he said. “And we have foundations outside of Columbus that also really embraced this idea of the bike park as really enhancing our community and making a place where it’s open to the public, free for all.”
Donations ranged from $2,500 to $150,000, Portillo said.
Construction of the bicycle playground will be paid for by MidTown Inc., according to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the city and MidTown. This is a gift valued at $587,000, according to the MOU. The Columbus Parks and Recreation Department will provide routine maintenance, including cutting the grass and removing trash.
This park was designed to retain all healthy trees, according to the presentation.
“The MidTown Children’s Bicycle Playground will encourage children to exercise, learn basic biking skills, and take those learned skills with them to Standing Boy and the Dragonfly Trails, all while enjoying outdoor activities and quality time away from their screens,” the news release says. “It will draw diverse families to the area and clearly serve as an enhanced amenity to MidTown.”
Portillo expects the park to be open to the public by middle to late January.
He is grateful for the partnership MidTown Inc. has had with the Columbus Consolidated Government to bring the bicycle park to fruition.
“Privately funded, it is MidTown’s gift to the city,” Portillo said. “But without their support, without their guidance, this project would not have happened.”
This story was originally published November 17, 2025 at 12:43 PM.
