The origin of the park can be traced to an initial meeting between Omri Yigal and David Marsland, in late April 2009. Both men had lost their foreign-born wives in the shooting. Yigal expressed a desire to create a memorial garden on the grounds of the ACA and Marsland was interested in doing something with the other families who had lost loved ones in the tragedy.

After this initial meeting, both men reached out to the other family members and the ACA to gather a group to promote this idea. A number of meetings were held over the summer of 2009, involving family members, members of the ACA board, representatives of the City of Binghamton, and local architects.

Mr. Marsland was asked to head the fundraising efforts on behalf of the other family members. Fund raising efforts lasted nearly four years to accumulate the nearly $230,000 required for the final design.

Madeleine Cotts of IBI-BCK Architects was selected as the architect and oversaw construction of the park itself.

In the fall of 2009, the American Civic Association abruptly withdrew from the project for reasons that were never made public. The Committee, now composed only of the family members of the 13 people slain, instead formed a partnership with the current administration of the City of Binghamton, led by then Mayor Matthew Ryan, in order to allow donations to the park to be tax-deductible. City Council met in early 2010 to discuss the project and approved legislation creating a dedicated account for the purposes of accepting donations for the construction of the park on an existing city lot near the Clinton Street bridge, just north of the ACA building where the shootings occured.