Oklahoma City has earned a big recognition. Myriad Botanical Gardens executive director Maureen Heffernan says know her team knows what it feels like to win a World Series.

Zak Patterson reports that the Myriad Botanical Gardens is Oklahoma City was awarded the Urban Land Institute Urban Open Space award. "The award is given to parks that have "socially enriched and revitalized the economy of their surrounding communities," explains Patterson.
The ULI website announcing the 2015 winners describe the Myriad Botanical Gardens thusly:
Myriad Botanical Gardens, owned by the Myriad Gardens Foundation and designed by the Office of James Burnett, and Murase Associates, is a joint investment effort that takes a highly-underused yet prime 15-acre urban downtown garden and park site that had fallen into disrepair, and turns it into a state-of-the-art, highly active destination to improve the quality of life in Oklahoma City and continue the renaissance of the entire downtown.
Myriad Botanical Gardens joined Thousand Lantern Lake Park System in Foshan, Guangdong, China as this year's winners of the global ward, beating out other finalists from Singapore, Chicago, Santa Monica, California and Washington, D.C.
FULL STORY: Myriad Botanical Gardens selected as global winner of urban space award

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