After nearly 40 years of being untouched by repairs, two of the city’s green spaces saw some major renovations that took over a year to complete.
But families, young children, and teenagers will have to wait for the snow to melt to unveil these changes and use some of the new amenities.
Both Primrose Park and Chaudière Park, in the west end of Somerset ward, were identified for repairs and redevelopment by the city in 2011.
These upgrades were part of a plan to improve the local area and its green spaces as Centretown intensification projects continued.
“As we get more and more people living here we do have to provide recreation facilities, maintain our tree cover and what small number of parks we have,” says Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes.
“We have the fewest number of parks in the city so we certainly do have to make good use of our parks and make sure that families will use them and people will come.”
The money to upgrade these two parks has come from Ottawa’s “cash-in-lieu of parkland” fund that helps to offset the developments that inevitably take away some of the city’s green space. Project developers can either set aside land for parks or give the city a 5 per cent payment per unit instead.
According to Holmes, developers usually provide land in the suburbs, but downtown, where there is not as much unoccupied land, developers will often opt to give cash.
The city commissioned the award-winning, Ottawa-based firm, Lashley + Associates, to come up with the concepts to improve the parks and make better use of their space.
According to the company’s principal landscape architect, David Lashley, it was about time that the parks be brought up-to-date.
“The city wanted to upgrade the facilities because the facilities were at the end of their life-cycle,” he says. “They also wanted to look at the programming for the sites to better suit the demographics for the neighbourhood.”
Chaudière Park, located on Elm Street bordering Little Italy and Chinatown, was designed in the 1960s after a few city lots were combined to create this small “pocket park.” After many years of being well-loved and used by local residents, the park’s structure started to tire.
“The wading pool in Chaudière was coming to the end of its life and we needed the whole piping reestablished and cement work updated. The children’s playground needed new equipment as well and the basketball court was in pretty bad shape,” says Holmes.
The rebuilt park now features a new playground suited for young children and a refurbished wading pool.
In the case of Primrose Park, the goal was to provide better use of the space with more seated areas and open space. The park, located on Primrose Avenue, is a popular destination for not only young families and seniors, but also dogs – and Lashley wanted the designs to reflect that.
“People walk their dogs there. They have conversations there when they’re out with their dogs. So it was really important to get that back going this fall,” Lashley adds.
The park also features a new splash pad, which is expected to be a popular addition to the neighbourhood during the warmer months.
Both parks are now open and can be used by the public, but are still waiting on power for the park lights and sod to be laid. Holmes expects that both parks will be completely done and unveiled to the public by May.