Holiday Park’s Dog Park Work Is Targeted for Completion by Summer 2027. Here’s Where Victoria Park Dog Owners Walk Now.

The orange construction fencing went up around the western half of the dog park at Holiday Park back in May, and it is still there. If your routine used to start with a leash by the door and end at the fenced run off G. Harold Martin Drive, you have already rerouted more than once this year. The question by now is not when the fencing comes down. It is what to do until then, and whether "until then" is really as close as it sounds.

Fort Lauderdale's own parks department put a number on it. The dog park went fully dark for three days, May 26 through 28, 2026, and the western portion has stayed closed since, with the whole project targeted for completion by summer 2027, weather permitting, according to the city's Holiday Park facility page. That means Victoria Park dog owners are roughly four months into a closure that is likely to run another nine to eleven months. Walking paths through that section carry posted detours, and the city has flagged elevated noise between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. while crews work.

The playground closed at the same time and for the same reason. Both projects are part of the same construction package, which also includes new shade over the baseball dugouts, updated wayfinding signage, landscaping, and trail work across the park's 93 acres.

The Summer 2027 Target

Fort Lauderdale voters approved a $200 million parks bond in 2019. A report on the rollout, syndicated from the South Florida Sun Sentinel in late May 2026, found that seven years after the vote, the city had spent about $59 million of it, most on planning and design rather than construction. Holiday Park was one of the projects that broke ground after a delay.

Phase 1 of the Holiday Park work, the rebuilt Jimmy Evert Tennis Center, wrapped with a ribbon cutting on December 8, 2025, according to the city's own parks bond project page. The dog park and playground are Phase 2, which received City Commission approval on January 20, 2026. A notice to proceed followed that March, and the city held a formal groundbreaking on Friday, May 29, 2026, days after the initial three-day closure.

District 2 Commissioner Steve Glassman was there for it. The South Florida Sun Sentinel report quoted his comment at the ceremony:

"We had a nice little crowd. We were all so frustrated with the delay. I said I wanted to apologize to the families here who felt they needed to have more kids so they could still use the playground."

The Victoria Park Civic Association has stayed close to the process rather than watching from the sidelines. A Change.org petition tracking the playground's status noted that the commissioner's office has been in regular contact with the association, and that City Manager Rickelle Williams spoke directly to the group at its February 2026 meeting. If you want a status update before the next city press release, the civic association's meetings are where it tends to surface first.

Where the Neighborhood Rerouted

Residents did not wait around for Phase 2 to finish before figuring out a workaround. Three spots have absorbed most of the traffic, and each one solves a different piece of what the Holiday Park dog run used to cover.

The smallest fix is the neighborhood's own pocket park, the one actually named Victoria Park, tucked at 2 N Victoria Park Road along a saltwater canal. It is barely more than an acre, with a gazebo, a couple of benches, and steps down into the water that dogs use to cool off on hot afternoons. It also doubles as a kayak and paddleboard launch, so it gets some overlap traffic with the paddling crowd rather than being a purely dog-focused stop.

Annie Beck Park, a few blocks over, offers a paved waterfront walkway with open lawn and a clear line of sight to boats moving along the canal. It is a better fit for a straightforward walk than for off-leash time, since there is no fenced run there.

The third option skips walking altogether. Las Olas Paddle Boards, Boats & Kayaks runs a retail shop and dock on the Middle River, right in Victoria Park, and it is not unusual to see a dog riding along on a paddleboard instead of trotting beside one on land. A local outfitter also offers a tour through the canals, with a paddleboard mascot dog leading small groups.

Here is how the three compare if you are deciding where to point the leash this week:

None of these fully replace a fenced dog park. What they do is spread the same routine across three different parts of the neighborhood instead of funneling everyone toward one closed gate, which is roughly how Victoria Park has always handled its odd shape: a little bit of everything, a few blocks apart, rather than one obvious center.

The Project Timeline

The city lists summer 2027 as the target completion date, weather permitting. Phase 1 finishing at the tennis center is a good sign. It is not a guarantee that Phase 2 moves at the same pace, especially once hurricane season timing and Broward's usual summer weather delays enter the picture.

For now, the practical read is simple. The workaround loop through the pocket park, Annie Beck, and the Middle River dock is not a stopgap most people are counting the days on. It has become its own small routine, the kind that tends to outlast the construction fencing it was built around.

If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this is worth to live in day to day, not just what it's worth on paper, that's the kind of texture worth understanding before you commit to a block. You can read more about how Victoria Park spends its weeks and weekends on the Victoria Park neighborhood page, or see how the rest of the calendar fills in around what actually happens here week to week.

If you're weighing a move into Victoria Park, or wondering what your own home here is worth in a market that keeps changing around it, Glen Primak can walk you through it directly. Get a free home valuation and a straight answer about where things stand.