Creekside Park

Creekside Park — the Olympic legacy park at the head of False Creek

Creekside Park occupies the corner where False Creek runs out of water and the city closes in around it — about 6.3 acres of lawn, shoreline, playground and paddling dock wedged between the geodesic dome of Science World and the low brick and glass of the Olympic Village. It is one of the few parks in Vancouver whose entire reason for existing can be dated: it was built out of the Southeast False Creek redevelopment that produced the athletes’ village for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, and everything in it — the community centre, the boat launch, the seawall that pivots around the head of the creek — was designed at the same time as the neighbourhood behind it.

Highlights

• The seawall junction — this is the hinge of the whole False Creek waterfront: the path coming east from Yaletown swings around the head of the creek here and heads back west along the south shore toward the Olympic Village, Granville Island and Kitsilano.
• The playground — over 18,000 square feet opened in 2017, built as the city’s largest and most accessible at the time, with a 22-metre zipline, a climbing tower, a giant tube slide, sand and water play, outdoor musical instruments and more than thirty shade trees planted around it.
• Creekside Community Recreation Centre — a LEED Platinum building of roughly 45,000 square feet that opened in the summer of 2010, holding a gym, fitness centre, dance and yoga studios, changing rooms and a waterfront restaurant.
• The paddling centre and boat launch — kayaks, canoes and dragon boats go into the water directly from the park, and the dragon boat races that fill False Creek each summer start from this shore.
• Science World’s dome — the 47-metre geodesic sphere built as the Expo Centre for the 1986 world’s fair stands immediately north of the lawn and is the park’s permanent backdrop.
• The Olympic Village plaza — a two-minute walk west, where Myfanwy MacLeod’s pair of five-metre house sparrows, installed in 2010, sit beside the restored Salt Building of about 1930.

What you’ll find

The park reads as three bands. Along the water runs the seawall and the dock, with the paddling launch and a gazebo that generations of walkers have used as a meeting point. Behind that lies the open ground: lawn, picnic space, young shade trees and the big playground. Behind that again sits the community centre, built into the park rather than beside it, with the ground rising over part of it. Because the whole neighbourhood was planned as a sustainability showpiece, the details repeat that logic — bioswales, native planting, permeable surfaces, and a shoreline treated as habitat rather than as a wall.

• A large open lawn used for picnics, festivals, informal sport and summer events.
• The 2017 playground, with a zipline, climbing tower, tube slide, swings, sand and water play and musical elements.
• A community recreation centre with gym, fitness room and studios, plus washrooms and changing facilities.
• A paddling centre and boat launch used by kayakers, canoeists and dragon boat crews.
• A section of the False Creek seawall, with separated walking and cycling lanes, and a ferry dock nearby.
• A gazebo, benches, drinking fountains and lawn edges facing the water and the downtown skyline.

Things to do — and who it’s for

• Families with children — this is one of the strongest playgrounds in the city, and it sits beside a lawn, a washroom, a café and a science museum, which makes a whole day easy to assemble.
• Paddlers — dragon boat crews, outrigger clubs, kayakers and stand-up paddlers all launch from here into the calmest big water in the city.
• Walkers and runners — the park is the natural turning point for a full loop of False Creek, roughly ten kilometres of continuous car-free waterfront.
• Cyclists — the seawall through the park is a main commuting artery as well as a leisure route, and it connects to the protected bike network of the downtown peninsula.
• Visitors doing the Olympic Village walk — the park is the eastern anchor of a short circuit that takes in the village, the sparrow sculptures, Habitat Island and Hinge Park.
• Anyone who likes watching a city work — from one bench you can see a science museum, a SkyTrain crossing, a ferry dock, a dragon boat practice and a skyline, all at once.

Getting there & practical

Creekside Park sits in Southeast False Creek, at the very head of the inlet, and it has better transit than almost any park in the city. Main Street–Science World Station on the Expo Line is directly beside it — you can be on the lawn within a minute of leaving the platform — and Olympic Village Station on the Canada Line is a short walk west along the water. The small False Creek passenger ferries also call nearby, linking the park to Granville Island, Yaletown and the West End, which turns an ordinary visit into a much better one. The park itself is free, open at all hours and never gated; the seawall is lit at night. Science World charges its own admission and keeps museum hours, and the community centre has its own programme and opening times for the gym, studios and drop-in activities. There are public washrooms, and food both inside the centre and across in the village. Dogs are welcome on a leash. Cycling is permitted on the marked seawall lanes only. An hour covers the playground and a stroll; half a day if you add the museum or the full False Creek loop.

When to visit

Summer is the park’s high season — long light, dragon boat crews training every evening, the playground busy from breakfast to bedtime and the lawn used for outdoor events and festival programming. Spring brings blossom on the young street trees, mild air and the return of the paddling clubs to the water after the winter break. Autumn is arguably the most pleasant: the crowds thin, the light comes in low across the water and hits the dome, and the seawall becomes a runner’s park again. Winter is grey and often wet, but this stretch of waterfront never closes, the community centre keeps its programme running indoors regardless of weather, and the December weeks bring one of the city’s best free spectacles when the neighbourhood and the dome light up and reflect the whole length of the creek.

Good to know

For a century this shoreline was industry. Southeast False Creek was laid out in the late 1800s as a shipping and manufacturing district, served by rail lines and packed with sawmills, works and warehouses — including the salt refinery of about 1930 whose building still stands, restored, at the heart of the Olympic Village. The creek itself was named by accident: the Royal Navy surveyor George Henry Richards, charting these waters between 1856 and 1863, believed he was entering a creek, discovered his mistake, and let the name stand. The dome that dominates the view arrived with Expo 86: designed by the exposition’s chief architect Bruno Freschi as the Expo Centre, built between 1984 and early 1985, it was handed to the city afterwards and reopened as a science centre in May 1989. The park’s own moment came two decades later. The city redeveloped the contaminated industrial land behind the shoreline as a model sustainable neighbourhood, and it served as the athletes’ village of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games before converting to roughly 1,100 homes. Creekside Community Recreation Centre opened in the summer of 2010 to LEED Platinum standard as part of that legacy, and the park was rebuilt around it. The playground you see today is newer still: the original one was removed in 2011 to make room for Science World’s outdoor exhibits and seawall improvements, and its replacement opened in 2017. The story is not finished — the city, the park board and the landowner of the neighbouring lands have approved a large northward expansion of Creekside Park on the ground freed by the removal of the old viaducts, with the internationally known landscape firm behind New York’s High Line leading the design.

Visitor tips

• Arrive by SkyTrain or by ferry. Parking around the head of the creek is limited and metered, and the transit connections here are unusually good.
• Come to the water’s edge on a summer weekday evening: dragon boat and outrigger crews train in the flat water off the park, and it is the best free show on the creek.
• If you have children, combine the playground with Science World and the sparrow sculptures in the village plaza — the three sit within a ten-minute walk of one another.

Questions & answers

Is Creekside Park free? Yes. The park, the playground, the lawn and the seawall are free and open around the clock. Science World charges admission separately, and the community centre has its own fees for certain programmes and drop-ins.

What makes this an Olympic legacy park? The park and its community centre were built as part of the Southeast False Creek redevelopment that produced the athletes’ village for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The centre opened in the summer of 2010 to LEED Platinum standard, and the village behind it converted to permanent housing after the Games.

How old is the playground and what is in it? It opened in 2017 on more than 18,000 square feet and was built as the city’s largest and most accessible playground of the time. It includes a 22-metre zipline, a climbing tower, a giant tube slide, swings, sand and water play, outdoor musical instruments and a play hut reached by a ramp.

Can I put a kayak or paddleboard in the water here? Yes. The park has a paddling centre and a launch used by kayakers, canoeists, outrigger paddlers and dragon boat crews, and False Creek is the sheltered flat water the city’s paddling clubs are built around.

Which SkyTrain station is closest? Main Street–Science World Station on the Expo Line stands immediately beside the park. Olympic Village Station on the Canada Line is a short walk west along the seawall.

Is Science World part of the park? No. The dome is an independent science centre with its own admission and opening hours; it simply happens to stand on the shoreline immediately north of the park, and the two share the same stretch of seawall.

Can I walk right around False Creek from here? Yes. Creekside is the turning point of a continuous car-free waterfront loop of roughly ten kilometres, taking in the Olympic Village, Granville Island, Yaletown and the north shore of the creek.

Are dogs allowed? Yes, on a leash, on the lawn and on the seawall. Off-leash areas are provided elsewhere in the surrounding neighbourhood rather than in the park itself.

Is the park going to change? Yes. A major northward expansion of Creekside Park has been approved on land freed by the removal of the old elevated roadways, designed with an internationally known landscape architecture firm, so the area will grow substantially over the coming years.