Jose Jimenez, left, of Chehalis, plays catch with his son, Andy, 9, at Recreation Park in Chehalis on April 30 as the sun begins to set on the horizon.
The Chehalis City Council got its first glimpse of what the future of Recreation Park and Penny Playground could look like during its Monday meeting.
Remodeling and improving the park into a “first-class facility” has been on the council’s agenda for a long time, but Tuesday's meeting offered the first concrete examples of what could be done.
Information from a landscape architectural firm, a sports field expert, a public outreach company and a civil engineering firm were compiled into a slideshow and presented to the council.
Three representatives from the organizations offered up their interpretations of what needs to be done and could be done to shape the future of Recreation Park. The final design is expected to be created between December and March 2016, with construction beginning May 2016.
What the park and Penny Playground will look like largely depends on how much money the city is willing to spend and how it envisions users interacting with the space. Right now, four ball fields dominate the space with two kitchens, a handful of picnic areas and playground equipment filling the edges.
Based on interviews with the city officials and staff and some current users, the businesses presented the city council with a menu of optional upgrades and their corresponding price tags.
As just a couple of examples, the city could renovate the old restrooms for $117,000, or replace them for $221,000; they could also be combined into the side of a modified kitchen building, which would generate savings and free up extra space.
They could replace the VR Lee and Fred Hess kitchens with two 2,800-square-foot buildings for $1.112 million, or even combine them into a 5,800 square-foot building for $1.933 million.
Perhaps the most sensitive issue at hand is Penny Playground.
The playground equipment was purchased 22 years ago with a projected lifespan of 20 years. The wood it’s built from has significant dry rot issues and was treated with toxic chemicals that can be hazardous if transdermally absorbed. The Parks Department has been sealing the wood with linseed oil, but the issues persist.
Chehalis Community Development Director Dennis Osborn previously told the council the equipment is so old the manufacturer doesn’t make replacement parts for it any more. Additionally, the equipment doesn’t meet the standards of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Although Washington hasn’t adopted the commission’s guidelines, other states have, and many groups are pressing Washington to do the same.
Thomas Skillings, of Skillings Connolly, the firm that’s leading the project, offered a $104,000 “band aid” solution all the way up to a $525,000 custom playground facility.
The menu of ideas were then taken a step further and presented as three options that ranged from upgrading current facilities but leaving the layout largely as is, to moving some of the amenities around and dropping one of the ball fields, and lastly removing two ball fields to create the maximum amount of green space.
Those options also included the possibilities of combining the two kitchens into one large building and adding an amphitheater. However, none of the options set before them were solid proposals, rather they were merely an exercise to show the counselors a broad range of possibilities.
No final price tags were included with any of the options because they are fodder for consideration at this stage.
Mayor Dennis Dawes and Councilor Daryl Lund balked when they saw the idea of dropping the number of ballfields. Lund said reducing the number of fields could hamper softball tournaments, which draw people to the park. The idea could drive people out of Chehalis and thus decrease the amount of money the city receives from the hotel/motel tax, he said.
“That is also why we’re showing this to you. If there’s absolutely no way to do two fields we want to know that before we went out to the community,” said Juliet Vong, from HBB Landscape Architects.
She also said removing the fields was just an option, but the user groups told the interviewers that the fields were tightly built into the space and a couple were too small for tournament play. Also, a more durable synthetic turf surface on two or three fields could accommodate a heavier use.
Regardless of what is done to the park, Skillings recommended the city fix the drainage issues that plague the entire park. The price tag of that alone is close to $335,000. Other options included increasing the number of parking spaces from 190 up to 240 or 280.
Dawes also worried about how much time the city may have to fundraise, but City Manager Merlin MacReynold assured him a financing plan will be presented after the city finalizes a design.
The vision of the park’s future will also largely be determined by the input the city and the businesses receive from the public. Erin Taylor, a public outreach specialist with EnviroIssues, is spearheading an outreach campaign to learn what the public desires and communicate it with the city. There will be several weeks of public outreach starting Thursday and lasting through Nov. 13.
Residents living in the Chehalis ZIP code will be asked how they use the park, how they want to use it in the future, what they imagine for the park and what they think of certain design concepts.
The message will be broadcasted via a letter from the city council, on the city website, posts on the “Experience Chehalis” Facebook page, and signs at the park and in city hall. There will also be two open house meetings and an online version.
The community feedback will be presented to the city council Nov. 23. A final design will be created between December and March 2016. Additional public involvement will occur between February and March 2016.
