If you've walked the Davenport Street entrance to Hickory Hill Park sometime in the last year and felt like the trail keeps going further than it used to, you're not imagining it. The wooded edge past the north end of the park used to give way to an undeveloped field that spent years caught in a rezoning fight, one proposal after another rejected by the city before a final version won approval. That field is gone now. In its place is a new building on a knoll, and behind that building, nearly 40 acres of prairie and trail that didn't exist as public park land two years ago.
If you live in Windsor Heights, Bel Air, Arlington Heights, or any of the neighborhoods that ring the park's east side, this is the kind of change you feel before you can explain it. The park is bigger. There's a new building where there wasn't one. And something is happening over there most weekends that has nothing to do with real estate and everything to do with why you moved to this side of town in the first place.
The fight over the field next door
Hickory Hill Park has always been boxed in. Its western edge runs against Oakland Cemetery and St. Joseph's Cemetery, its southern boundary sits near Regina High School, and for most of its history there wasn't much room left to grow. So when a developer proposed building on a parcel adjacent to the park's northeast corner, the Friends of Hickory Hill Park, the all-volunteer nonprofit that's looked after the park since 1999, paid close attention.
Multiple versions of the plan included single-family homes on the parcel, and the city rejected each one in turn. The proposal that finally cleared the zoning commission and the council dropped the single-family housing entirely, replacing it with a senior living facility on a smaller footprint and a much larger land gift attached to it.
Laura Goddard, treasurer of the Friends board at the time, called the back and forth "a good example of community involvement and voices being heard." The group's support for the final plan came with one condition: the land had to actually be deeded to the city and folded into the park, not just promised.
It was. The Iowa City Council gave final approval in December 2021, and the deal that emerged is the reason the park looks different today.
What actually got built
The facility itself sits on 8.85 acres at the southeast corner of the larger plot. It's a 69,689 square foot building split into three sections: a single-story memory care wing, a two-story core with dining and common areas, and a three-story assisted living wing, totaling 120 units and 134 beds. Nelson Construction & Development built it, and it opened under the name FeatherStone at Hickory Hill before later rebranding as StoryPoint Hickory Hill. The address is 2450 Hickory Trail, tucked against the park's north end.
The grand opening happened on October 17, 2024, with Executive Director Tracy Shereza and Director of Sales Jordan Pahl cutting the ribbon alongside a resident named Dorothy. Iowa City Mayor Pro Tem Mazahir Salih gave dedication remarks, and a local jazz group, The George Jazz Group, played before the ceremony. It's the kind of detail that tells you this wasn't just a building permit closing out quietly. The city showed up for it.
The acreage math
Here's the part that matters if you're the one walking the trail. The parcel that could have become single-family lots instead handed the city somewhere between 38 and nearly 40 acres, depending on which source you check, containing prairie grass preserve, walking trails, and picnic shelters that are now part of the public park. Before this donation, Hickory Hill Park sat at roughly 185 acres. Today, the total is closer to 220, an increase of about 21 percent in one transaction.
To put that in perspective against the park's own history: the original core was a 40-acre purchase back in 1927, with 50 more acres added in 1952 and the park formally dedicated in 1968. This single land gift is nearly the size of that entire original footprint, added in one deal instead of over four decades. That's not a small park getting a little bigger. That's one of the largest single expansions the park has ever seen, and it happened because a fight over housing turned into a negotiation over open space instead.
A new front door on the trail
You don't need a family member living at StoryPoint Hickory Hill to notice it's become part of the neighborhood's rhythm. The community has hosted a handful of events that are open to anyone in the surrounding blocks, not just residents and their visitors:
- An Easter Bunny visit each spring, with an outdoor egg hunt, treats, and photo opportunities billed as free and open to the public
- An Earth Day grounds restoration day, inviting neighbors to help restore and maintain the property alongside residents
- A food drive partnership with Mission Bluegrass benefiting the North Liberty Community Pantry
None of these require an invitation. They're the kind of low-key additions to the calendar that make a corner of the neighborhood feel a little more lived-in, the same way a new coffee shop or a farmers market stall changes how a block gets used on a Saturday.
What this actually means if you already live here
The Friends of Hickory Hill Park haven't stopped showing up either. Volunteer workdays are still a regular fixture, and outside groups keep joining in. A chapter of Grinnell College alumni in the Corridor area volunteered alongside the Friends for a park workday in spring 2025, the kind of ongoing partnership that's kept the park's trails and prairie sections maintained for years.
So the next time you're on the loop that starts at the Conklin Lane entrance off North Dodge Street, across from the Hy-Vee, and you notice the trail stretching further north and east than it used to, you'll know why. A development that could have quietly eaten into the park's edge instead became the reason the park is bigger than it's ever been, with a new neighbor next door that's started acting like one.
That's the version of this story that doesn't show up if you're just scrolling past a headline about a new assisted living facility. It's the version you only get if you've walked the trail both before and after, and noticed the difference for yourself.
If you're the kind of person who pays attention to details like this, whether you're already settled on Iowa City's East Side or you're weighing a move to a house within a few blocks of that new prairie loop, Opal & Oak Real Estate would love to talk through what the neighborhood actually looks and feels like day to day. Schedule a Curated Listing Consultation and let's find the right fit, trailhead included.
