Parks
Copper Sky Regional Park
Maricopa’s marquee park, Copper Sky opened in 2014 to much fanfare, instantly changing what the city offered its residents. The 98-acre park brought together city-sponsored fitness and recreation programs, expansive fields and courts, a skatepark and a central home for large community events. This summer, the park adds its next major piece with the opening of The Fieldhouse at Copper Sky, designed to host indoor sports such as basketball and volleyball in a city where summer heat has long limited indoor options. Before it became Copper Sky, this area was originally called the Vekol Retention Basin, or Vekol Park. Copper Sky took Maricopa to the next level because it satisfied a lot of community needs, but it also brought other people out to see what
then, and looking back, it’s wild that it’s already been 11 years. The Fieldhouse should open late this summer. It’s a huge indoor space that can host four basketball games or six volleyball games at the same time. That’s going to help the community, because there just isn’t enough indoor space here. With our summers, kids need more indoor space than we have now.
Maricopa is all about. They added eight more multipurpose fields and four more ball fields. That tripled our inventory, and we finally caught up with the size of the community. We had a huge grand opening for the multigenerational center, and then two weeks later we turned around and had the salsa festival. The aquatic center opened a couple months after that. It was crazy back
Pacana Park Pacana, the Spanish word for pecan, reflects the acres of pecan groves that once stretched across the area. Pacana Park opened in 2006 as the new city’s first official park, quickly becoming its primary gathering place. As Maricopa grew, the park grew with it, and in 2008 the city purchased an additional 10 acres to add fields, open space and parking. Pacana Park is definitely a foundational piece of the community, and I think a lot of people have good memories from that. It opened in 2006 and the city held a big, two-day festival. I’m thinking back to when I used to coach youth sports at Pacana. We had so many kids. We took each soccer field and divided it into six mini fields so every team could get a practice spot. You had four different waves of practices, so in one hour you had 12 different soccer teams sharing two soccer fields. It’s what the city did to get by until Copper Sky Regional Park opened, but I think it also helped build that tight-knit community because there were just so many kids at Pacana Park. In the last 20 years, Pacana has really created a lot of memories, and I think the city has continued to add to it. Now there’s an outdoor fitness court, cornhole boards and new murals.
Room to play The story of Maricopa’s parks BY MONICA D. SPENCER
M aricopa has been building itself one park at a time. Some opened when the city was still figuring out what it wanted to be. Others are just now coming online, shaped by a community that has grown more layered and more demanding of its public spaces. A few exist only on paper but already carry big expectations about what Maricopa’s next era should look like. Taken together, the city’s parks tell a story of growth, patience and ambition. Of soccer practices packed six teams to a field. Of grand openings that doubled as civic milestones. Of long waits, neighborhood pride and the constant push to keep up with a fast-growing city. In 2026, several of those storylines converge. New parks open. Old ones celebrate milestones. Expansion plans move from ideas to drawings. And for the first time in nearly 20 years, Maricopa begins rethinking its parks system as a whole. Parks and Recreation Director Rocky Brown has been present for much of that arc, first as a coach and resident, now as the person guiding what comes next. What follows is his walk through Maricopa’s parks, one by one, reflecting on where they started, how they’ve been used and what they are still meant to become. Some answers have been lightly edited for readability.
InMaricopa.com | February 2026
February 2026 | InMaricopa.com
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