By: Tim Kays
The new park at the southwest intersection of Jonesville and Main Streets was a major subject of discussion at the February 3 meeting of the Montpelier Parks and Recreation Board.
Architect Chris Kannel gave a generic overview of the proposed park, saying, “There were several things that have been identified from the beginning that this is an event park, so there’s no playground.”
“The intent is that it gets used as a place to gather for Bean Days or Olde Tyme Holiday Gathering, maybe even a cruise-in, and provide some sort of stage space for performances, instead of what’s happened the last few years where we pick a spot and kind of drop them in.”
“And also as a gathering place as a wayfinding place for the Trail. An important part of this is as we look at the Active Transportation Plan and the ever expanding view of that transportation plan, specifically with the property that the village is pursuing…along the St. Joseph River, which now the official name of that project is the St. Joseph River Habitat Protection Project.”
“We’re calling it the HPP. As we add the HPP and what that could do for the village and trails and recreation, this property and this corner become even more prominent than it was before.”
Three options for the park were considered, but the one that received the most attention, Option B, places a stage on the south side of the park that is viewable from both Jonesville and Main Streets.
“A feature of the park is some landscaping,” Kannel pointed out, “…specifically some screen plantings that will help to screen some of the some of the buildings on that block that are not so attractive. So there are lots of planters. We talked about planters that people can sit on, that are tall enough that that you can just kind of lean up against it.”
“The park staff wants these planters to have curves around them so that mowing doesn’t interact with the landscaping, so that the snow plowing doesn’t interact with the landscaping just to keep it separate from the machines that get used on the property. An important feature of this is limiting the amount of pavement, because pavement is expensive.”
“So it’s mostly lawn, with a little bit of pavement around the edge; lots of benches that face both directions. (Recreation Director) Sandy (Gordon) gets a lot of comments, ‘Why did you put the park benches facing away from Main Street, because I can’t use them for the parade?’ You’re right.”
“For 35 minutes once or twice a year, you can’t sit on the bench and watch the parade. But the other 363 days of the year, you can sit on the bench and look down the alley that’s very well landscaped. But that doesn’t occur to people apparently, so these benches don’t have backs; you can sit and look in or out from the benches.”
Detailing the advantages of Option B, Kannel said, “First of all, if we’re going to use this park for events, an important part of using it for events is that you would use that stage as sort of the announcer’s platform. The judges would be there…that kind of thing. In this orientation, with the stage actually looking at Main Street, makes the most sense with that type of activity.”
Continuing, he said, “This orientation also allows for the largest effective seating capacity, because you get all 180 degrees of seating all the way around the corner, and the furthest seats are not as far away as they would be in some of the other some of the other options.’
“The other thing that that is important is that if there is a structure here…this stage, if it’s in the corner, you may never see it coming from the west. You will be long past the park before you would even know that there was a structure there.”
“Coming from the west, if the structure is on the west end, you’re only ever going to see the back of the stage. A future structure here on the south side allows for the best view coming east or west, and as was pointed out to me today, there’s a lot of traffic that comes up to that light and turns left onto Main Street.”
“We want them to sit there at that intersection and see this park, and see what’s going on there. So we prefer option B for those principal reasons.”
Option B places a stage on the south side of the park, which is viewable from both Jonesville and Main Streets. “In order to be a little more efficient with our costs,” Kannel said, “…we talked about using AZEK (a cellular, weather-resistant PVC material) or some other composite materials instead of concrete.”
“It’s a little more efficient for construction, and if it needs to be changed, it doesn’t require a jackhammer. There’s lots of really good examples of the this material being used. The one in particular that I can think of is at Middlegrounds Metropark in Toledo.”
“There’s going to be power at the stage,” Kannel continued. “There’s power in the street; water in the street, so we’re not going to have any trouble connecting to utilities. That’s going to probably be the easiest part of this.”
At the northeast corner of the park is a proposed multipurpose shade structure. “Here at the corner,” Kannel said, “…we’re looking at a shade structure. Something to provide some shade, especially in the summer months, acknowledging that we have to take it down. This type of structure is not going to be as expensive as a permanent structure. So we’re trying to be a little bit efficient with our funds here.”
Kannel detailed some of the potential amenities to be found in the proposed shade structure at the northeast corner of the park. “At the corner,” he pointed out, “…you see some park benches. These bollards are lights, but they are also charging stations.”
“It’s a light and a charging station, so that you’re riding along on your bicycle and take a break, you get a drink at the drinking fountain, and you can charge your phone while you’re while you’re resting. Underneath the shade structure, there are some bike racks, and there’s also…a bike repair station.”
Kannel said that the early estimates of costs total around $108,000, which does not include the shade structure. “We have $90,000,” Kannel said. “That includes almost $15,000 in contingencies, but that’s sort of what we’re looking at.”
Deliberations went on, including those pertaining to reducing costs and the possibility of raising funds. Board member Nick Ramos mentioned that he believes that there is a potential for the village casting the benches instead of purchasing them prefabricated, noting that the costs could be reduced 90% from $600 apiece, to just $60.
A suggestion was also made as to the possibility of using volunteer labor, and soliciting donations from individuals, businesses, civic groups and the like. These donations, it was suggested, could be targeted for specific purposes, and a plaque of recognition placed at the item or structure that was donated.
Ms. Gordon said that due to rampant vandalism, protective measures must be taken for the plaques. “It becomes a maintenance issue because the kids have a tendency of pulling those things out,” she said. “If you put it in, you’re going to have to have it flush mounted into the ground, with concrete masonry that that flares out, with anchor bolts tied into it so that it doesn’t get up and walk away.”
“Projects are going out for bid now for construction this spring and summer,” said Village Manager Jason Rockey. “The longer it’s delayed, the less likely we can get it completed by the project deadline, which was extended by ODNR to December 31. We have to spend that $90,000 this year, this calendar year, and we’re down one month already.”
“Once these things start rolling, the time goes by quickly, trust me. So when you have projects that you’re going to go out for bid, it’s six weeks in advertising, bid collection and approval, and to get it to the Council meeting and stuff.”
“Usually a contractor, they’re going to take, depending on how busy we are, it’s going to take me a couple months for them to get in too. We want to have something sooner than later, I’ll say. So it’s not like we can put this off to make a decision in July, and try to go out for bid and build something before the end of the year.”
The Board agreed to the selection of Option B. Ms. Gordon and Mr. Kannel will be fine tuning the proposal and firming up the numbers for the project, then presenting it again for final approval and forwarding it to Council.
In other items, the Board heard updates on the Iron Horse Trail, focusing heavily on the protected wetlands and the boardwalks.
“The ODOT environmentalists have been out and looked at that,” reported Mr. Rockey, “…and the way we avoid disturbing a wetland is by putting a boardwalk on helical piers so it will be elevated, and any floodwater or anything like that could move back and forth underneath the boardwalk.”
“According to ODOT rules, those helical piers do not affect the integrity of the wetland. The boardwalk will actually be 14 feet wide, and they have four foot rails on the sides to keep people from falling off the side or bicycles from going over the side.”
News from the Recreation Department included an update on the summer gardening program. “The garden order this year was a nightmare,” reported Ms. Gordon. “I don’t know if any of you been noticing or do any gardening. Almost all the seed companies are short staffed; they’ve been shutting down their websites.”
“One of my suppliers had 750,000 orders last year, and they’re on track to do a million this year, and then because of a Supreme Court ruling a couple years ago about online vendors…needing to charge tax, a lot of times they didn’t. They now all started doing that, so we need to make it tax exempt. Well, they’re so short handed, they have to enter into the system and there’s nobody there to do that.”
“I have one company that just flat out refused to do it. So everything I had ready to order from them, I had to buy from somewhere else. It took me days to get it all squared away and figured out. Hopefully next year will be a little smoother. I’ve never had to be that bad before trying to get stuff figured out for that, but that is all ordered.”
Ms. Gordon also asked the Board for their input on summer outdoor movies. “We do outdoor movies at the park,” she said, “…and one of them for this year is going to be a carryover from last year since we didn’t get it in.”
“I was looking at doing a couple other ones, but then I talked to Angie (Humphrey) at the library, and she would like to have an outdoor movie here. Normally their license only allows them to show movies in the building.”
“They’re allowed to buy from Swank, which is the same place we buy ours. Since they’re inside of the building, they buy an annual license and they can show whatever they want inside of the building.”
“As a Park and Rec, we’re not allowed to do that. We have to show them outside; we have to pay a fee per movie because theoretically, you could have 1,000 people come in, and in a library, you’re only going to have a few…and you’re not allowed to compete against the brick and mortar.
Well, she got a notice that Swank is letting them, as long as they’re on library property, show an outdoor movie under their license. They’d asked at one point if we would consider showing ‘Finding Dory’.”
“With your permission, I’d like to work with them for us to do one of our outdoor movies up here, because all I have to do is take our equipment and help run it and it wouldn’t cost anything. We’d basically save $400 to show an outdoor movie.” The Board agreed to the proposal.
Another subject for discussion was the concession stand and COVID protocols. “Right now it’s six feet between employees,” Gordon said, “…which for most of the concession stand will be okay if you get somebody on the popcorn machine, and somebody doing the pretzels and stuff like that.”
“The front counter is going to be the problem. I’m going to have to have some sort of barrier between the two at the front counter, and I need to have two at the front counter…particularly if it gets busy. There’s just no way around that if you get a team and you’ve got the general public coming to the front counter at the same time.”
“So face coverings, hand washing, which they have to do anyway, keeping in their zones…so we don’t have cross contamination. That’s just normal best practices for a concession stand. The big thing though, we can put up signs and stuff trying to keep people six feet apart, but I just don’t think realistically that’s going to be possible.”
“We’ll post and we’ll do the best we can. We’ve got time to figure out how we’re going to keep a bunch of 7, 8, and 9 year old kids from bunching up at the concession stand. I just don’t know how
the logistics are going to be to keep the young ones apart from each other.”
“The other thing is in front of the window,” she continued. “The material…is kind of falling apart; it’s 20 years old. It’s a wood frame with a screen on it, and it’s already loose.”
“I said something that the other day about whether or not we can take a look at putting Plexiglas on the top section of it…but still leave the bottom open in the screen or something on there.” The
Board is continuing to evaluate their options.
Tim can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
