SimCity Central Park (4 Lots) - NO CC

In much the same way that New York City’s Central Park provides a much-needed green space in the middle of Manhattan’s thoroughly urbanized landscape, I realized that as I was gradually putting together my own city out of my many skyscrapers and other modern buildings, I wanted a similar space left open and in a more natural state. At the same time, I didn’t want it just left undeveloped, since an urban park, while including trees and ponds and open expanses of green lawn, is certainly not a natural landscape. Any number of pathways, fountains, gazebos, bandstands, and monuments can be found in most urban parks, and as you can see, I decided to incorporate the same types of things into my own Central Park.

The four lots included in this upload (plus my earlier separate Bella Plaza lot) make up a massive north-south park in the middle of the city, with two sets of two lots intended to match up when placed adjacent to one another, as seen in some of the attached images. Obviously you’re welcome to rearrange and redesign these lots to make them work best in your own cities, but for ease of understanding in this description I’ll be discussing them as I intend them to be organized within my city, and the screenshots are grouped for each of the four lots in that same order.

At the far northern end of the park is a massive East Asian gate and several smaller shrines and ponds, which I imagine having been a gift from a sister city somewhere near Takemizu Village. South of that is the large Central Park Reservoir, which provides fishing opportunities and a bit more topographic variety in the middle of the city. South of that in my game and in the attached image is the square for which I built Bella Plaza, and then the park itself continues again on the other side. The next section is a large open common, perfect for sports or more casual games, with a larger fountain plaza as well. Finally, the park terminates at its southern end with a reasonably sized bandstand, set up to host community concerts and performances.

Each of these four lots obviously has its own unique character, but in keeping with the idea that they’re part of a single park unit, there are many elements in common between all of them. The surrounding sidewalks and border fencing is done in the same manner, with large entrance gates at multiple locations around the perimeter. Each lot also includes a restroom building and an outdoor grill (though for the Takemizu Gate lot, the grill is a portable model intended to look more like part of a casual picnic than a permanent installation as in the other three lots). Unsurprisingly each lot also includes plenty of benches along the paths, and ample open lawn space for sunbathing, skywatching, or impromptu games of catch.

The lots vary in price and size, with the relevant details for each of the four sections being listed below, and they’re actually some of the cheapest and smallest (at least in terms of demands on your game) lots I’ve created!

Takemizu Gate- 4x3, $95,032
Reservoir- 5x3, $60,665
Green- 4x3, $56,248
Bandstand – 3x3, $ $62,477

NPCs generated should be minimal- aside from random Townie walkbys, I think the only regular appearance should be the Human Statue character south of the Reservoir, so hopefully you’ll have plenty of other visitors showing up and being active on the lot to meet whenever your Sims visit!

I tested a clone of each of these lots to correct any routing or other issues (clones also being used for the screenshots, so the lots as uploaded have never been visited), and they should all work as intended and as expected, but let me know if you run into any trouble with any of them, and I’ll try to correct it if possible!

And with all the technical info out of the way, now my typical storytelling vignette to give this park a little flavor, if you’re interested!



Jogging through the city streets always seemed far too much effort- not that a workout was supposed to be easy but putting her effort into dodging delivery trucks and garbage heaped on the sidewalk and getting stuck running in place while waiting for a traffic light to change wasn’t the type of exercise Ashley was really looking for. No, she’d long since realized that for her daily runs, the paths winding through the green spaces and statue gardens of Central Park was much more to her liking. Her apartment was in one of the buildings a few blocks north of the park, so she still had a few city streets to contend with, but she looked at that as just an opportunity for a warmup rather than counting it as a proper part of her run.

She was always happy to see the brilliant colors of the Takemizu Gate emerging around the side of one of the blocky concrete skyscrapers, because that meant she was finally to the park itself. The oppressive canyon walls of the city fell away and while she wasn’t naïve enough to feel like she was ‘back in nature’ by any stretch, she still always felt like she could breathe easier once she passed through the north gate of the park. This northern part of the park was usually the most peaceful part too, with a few secluded East Asian sculptures and gardens in keeping with the massive gate that had been a gift to SimCity as a gesture of goodwill from the people of Takemizu Village decades ago. Occasionally the nearby lawns would be hosting a yoga class or a guided meditation, but today they were mostly empty and Ashley enjoyed the brief calm when compared to the usual hubbub of the late afternoon.



Continuing south on the gravel path through the park, she soon saw the park’s massive reservoir emerging into view. It came as no great surprise to Ashley that as soon as she came through the group of trees that visually served as the border between the Asian gardens and the reservoir that the park suddenly became much more active. Almost immediately her typical jogging path took her past a family celebrating a kid’s birthday party in one of the barbecue ramadas scattered throughout the park. Shortly thereafter she passed a few old men fishing- there had been a bit of controversy a few years ago when the city decided to start stocking the artificial pond so that city residents could cast their lines there, but aside from the occasional fisherman hooking garbage rather than a fish, there hadn’t ever been much of an issue with the new arrangement.

On the south bank of the lake was a gazebo where a few chess players regularly set up during the day, hustling naïve passers-by and challenging one another to blitz games that astonished their occasional audiences. Ashley hadn’t ever been particularly fond of the game so she seldom had bothered to stop and watch, instead continuing her run further south, passing a solitary street performer doing his best imitation of a statue in the hopes of getting a few tips from watching parkgoers. Supposedly some of these performers were convincing enough that the city’s pigeons would occasionally perch on their outstretched arms just like a real statue, but Ashley had never seen it happen and secretly suspected it was just another urban myth cooked up to amuse out-of-town visitors.



She passed through the ornate brick gate and crossed the street that marked the middle of the park, pausing to check her heart rate to see how she was doing on her run today. Satisfied enough with the numbers, she continued on through another gate in the park’s border wall, enjoying the pleasant splashing of a nearby fountain. The southern part of the park tended to be the busiest, with large expanses of lawn that almost always seemed to have a game of some sort going during the day. Today Ashley saw a group of friends had set up goals on either end of the green and were kicking a football back and forth- they didn’t seem to be taking the game too seriously though, and along the sidelines a few others were watching and heckling their friends good-naturedly.

A few sunbathers lay on blankets spread out on a patch of grass south of the field, and an elderly couple was enjoying a picnic lunch in another ramada as she continued her run. Clouds had been building during the early afternoon and looking up towards the sky, Ashley thought it would probably start raining about the same time she usually finished her typical route. Sure enough, as she jogged into another stand of trees that visually broke up the park into separate areas, she felt the first few raindrops splashing down on her.



The start of a light rainstorm drove some of the less prepared parkgoers to flee for the shelter of home or a nearby building, but several other joggers stayed out, and as Ashley came into the southernmost clearing in the park, she realized that the rain had done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of a good-sized gathering before the park’s bandstand. It looked like some sort of summer music festival must be going on, and the group on stage right now was actually pretty good. Ashley’s route took her around the back of the small amphitheater and since she usually finished her run once she got to the south end of the park anyways, she stopped to listen for a little while instead of walking back through the park for her post-run cooldown like she usually did.

Eventually the band finished their set and Ashely joined in the crowd’s applause before turning and heading through the park’s southern gate. She could see a bit of the nearby bay through a gap between two skyscrapers, it was late enough now that the waves were reflecting the early sunset colors streaking the rainy sky above her. For a moment she debated whether it was worth going a bit further to enjoy the view out over the harbor, but looking back at the crowds gradually filtering out of the park from the bandstand, she decided it was probably better to beat the rush, and flagged a cab to take her back uptown rather than walking back uptown in the rain. From the street the park was much less visible, but it was still pleasant to see the treetops and the tiled roof of the Takemizu Gate passing by out the window, rather than just the solid wall of skyscrapers that made up most of the rest of SimCity. Not for the first time Ashley sent positive thoughts out to whoever had decided to set aside this green space when they were designing the vast city.