Chicago Park District Website

The Chicago Park District owns more than 8,800 acres of green space, making it the largest municipal park manager in the nation. The Chicago Park District’s more than 600 parks offer thousands of sports and physical activities as well as cultural and environmental programs for youth, adults, and seniors. The Chicago Park District is also responsible for 28 indoor pools, 50 outdoor pools, and 26 miles of lakefront including 23 swimming beaches plus one inland beach.

Clarity redesigned, built, and hosts the official website for the Chicago Park District (CPD). Clarity designed and developed this user-friendly, mobile-responsive site, with a unified look and feel and marketing emphasis to promote CPD’s parks, programs, and events. The new website acts as a solution focused on its customers – “front end” visitors of the website and “back end” content administers – both of whom have a wide scope of needs.

Specifically, the new site provides the following improvements and features:

• New Content Management System (CMS) Platform
• Drupal 8, the latest version of the popular open-source framework;
• Allows CPD to more easily integrate and connect to third-party tools, such as
• ActiveNet, which provides externally-hosted ecommerce functions;
• AppliTrack, which provides job postings;
• Bonfire, which provides procurement and contracting opportunities;
• MailChimp, which provides newsletter signup capabilities.
• Updated design based on user focus group reactions to the old site, including
• A cleaner, refreshed look built for devices of all sizes;
• Home page updates that allow CPD staff to push more information in a more organized fashion;
• Larger emphasis on maps (hugely important for such a large metropolitan area);
• The ability to highlight features and attractions, such as artworks and natural areas, that CPD has to offer both residents and visitors;
• Overall increased speed and performance.
• Improved administrative functions that allow for
• Distributed content responsibilities;
• Workflow approvals to ensure editorial integrity;
• More modular administrative tools allowing CPD to highlight location details such as accessibility features

With its new site, Chicago Park District is now poised to better serve the long-term needs of residents and visitors for years to come.