Butterfield Park Is Open in South Morgan Hill, and a BMX Track Is Next in Line

"Without partners, the full development of even the first eight acres will be at least a decade into the future." That line comes from a City of Morgan Hill staff report, as quoted by the Morgan Hill Times in December 2022. It described a vacant, city-owned strip on Butterfield Boulevard that the City wanted to turn into a park built around a BMX track and a ball field.

Less than four years later, part of it is open. Butterfield Park opened to the public on October 1, 2026. The City has said a grand opening celebration will follow "later this fall." The playground and picnic tables are what people can use now, but they are not what the site was planned around. The park was designed around a BMX racetrack. In September, the City issued a permit to start grading for it.

What opened on Oct. 1

The park sits on the south side of Butterfield Boulevard, between Monterey Road and the Union Pacific Railroad and Caltrain tracks. It covers two City parcels, 9.5 acres in all. The Times placed it "just southwest of where Butterfield crosses Railroad Avenue." The City's environmental review puts San Martin Airport about 2.25 miles to the southeast, and part of the site falls within the 35-foot setback from Little Llagas Creek.

The City's Phase 1 bid called for:

• An asphalt parking lot, plus an overflow lot on dirt
• An all-inclusive playground with a synthetic turf play surface
• A modular restroom building
• Picnic areas
• Landscaping, stormwater control plantings, irrigation, signs and site furnishings
• Sewer, storm drain and water lines, with stub-outs left in place for later phases

The utility stub-outs for later phases were part of the Phase 1 scope. The bid also named those phases outright: "Future park improvements, not part of Phase 1, will include a BMX off-road dirt bicycle track and a baseball field."

In 2023, the City described the site as mostly vacant, undeveloped land with a stormwater detention basin at its western end, and its environmental document classified the land cover as crops, hay, pasture or fallow land. Phase 1 uses only part of the 9.5 acres, and the rest is set aside for the track and the field.

From a 2019 community meeting to an October 2026 opening

The park's main feature has been the same from the start.

1. May 8, 2019. At a City community meeting, people asked for bathrooms, bike tracks, a mix of BMX and baseball, and separate bike and walking lanes. Some raised concerns about access, water use and how maintenance would be paid for.
2. 2019. The City adopted an environmental study for a park with BMX pump tracks, an adult exercise area, a baseball or turf sports field, picnic areas, a building with a meeting room, concessions and restrooms, lawns, a walking path and paved parking.
3. Dec. 7, 2022. The City Council voted unanimously to start negotiating with Morgan Hill-based Dub Baseball and USA BMX to build the park.
4. July 2023. A revised environmental review noted the project hadn't been built yet. The redesign upgraded the BMX pump tracks to a full BMX racetrack and kept a 2.5-acre sports field.
5. July 26 to Oct. 2, 2024. The City requested bids for Phase 1 and closed bidding on October 2. The estimated construction cost was $3.2 million, with 360 calendar days allotted for construction. A Phase 1 stormwater document estimated construction would start in July 2024 and finish in March 2025.
6. Sept. 10, 2026. The City issued a grading permit for a BMX racetrack at 15510 Butterfield Blvd.
7. Oct. 1, 2026. Butterfield Park opened to the public.

The sports field and the BMX track appear in every version of the plan. The playground with a turf surface showed up when the City split the work into phases.

Why the playground came first

The Morgan Hill Times covered the money problem in its 2022 story. The City had applied for a state parks grant for the Butterfield site and been turned down. It had found about $4 million in parks funding for the site over four years, which staff said wouldn't come close to covering full buildout and long-term maintenance.

Compare that with the Phase 1 bid two years later, estimated at $3.2 million. The parts that opened this month fit within the funding the City had identified. The BMX track and ball field are the parts the City hoped partners would help with.

The Times reported that Dub Baseball and USA BMX were the only two groups to respond to the City's formal "Invitation to Partner." Both described more than just a track and a field:

"Upon the completion of the BMX track, USA BMX will support the project with full sanction status, local program creation and event scheduling."

That's from a May 31 letter to the council by Justin Travis, USA BMX's Director of New Track Development. The Times also reported that the letter "guarantee[d]" at least one major event a year if negotiations worked out. At the Dec. 7 council meeting, USA BMX coach Nick Valencia said "hundreds of kids" in and around Morgan Hill were "waiting for a place to race." Erik Wagle of Dub Baseball wrote to the council that "the Morgan Hill community has needed a park like this for decades."

According to the Times, the issues still to settle in 2022 were the final design, who would run and maintain the park, how costs and revenue would be split, and a guarantee of public access to the park and its amenities. The City hasn't published a final agreement with either group, so how the BMX track will be run and scheduled is still an open question.

The September permit for the BMX track

The City's monthly permits report for September 2026 includes this entry:

The contractor field is blank, and the report gives no start date for the work or opening date for the track. Still, this is the first City record since the Phase 1 bid to name the BMX racetrack as active work rather than a future phase. It was issued three weeks before the playground opened next to it.

Here is how the phases compare in the City's documents as of late October 2026:

For families nearby, the park's first season will likely be the quietest. The 2022 concept put the BMX track on the western end of the property, the sports field on the eastern end, and parking, restrooms and a training building in between. That's a concept drawing, not the final layout. If the plan holds, though, the playground area will end up between the two busiest parts of the park, and a USA BMX-sanctioned track could bring race days to a site that has only been open since the first of the month.

Visiting this fall

The parking lot and overflow dirt lot from the Phase 1 plan make Butterfield Park an easy drive-up stop. The playground's synthetic turf surface is the most obvious change from the bare ground that sat behind Butterfield Boulevard for years. The City links its announcement to its Healthy, Active Parks, Trails and Facilities page, which is the first place to check for park details. The City calendar entry is where the grand opening date should be posted once it's set.

When the City does hold a ribbon-cutting, it will mark the end of Phase 1. The plan the community asked for in May 2019 included bike tracks and a ball field, and the BMX part of it got its permit on Sept. 10.

If you live near Butterfield Boulevard and are wondering how a park like this changes your part of south Morgan Hill, I'm happy to talk through what I see across the city's neighborhoods. Jen Marley keeps track of how projects like Butterfield Park move from plans to open gates. Let's Connect.