The proposed plan for upgrades to McNabb Park includes a skateboard park, community garden and new playground equipment.
A major upgrade to McNabb Park, which will see the construction of a skateboard park and the installation of new playground equipment in the Centretown green space, is set to begin within a few weeks.
Patrick Legault, City of Ottawa manager for the project, says Centretown residents should be able to visit the refurbished park by the end of July.
“I believe it is going to revitalize McNabb Park, rejuvenate it and make it a community-wide attraction again,” says Legault.
About $600,000 is being spent on the project.
Legault says what is in store for the project will enrich the beauty and utility of the park.
The skateboard ramps will occupy the space used for decades by the lawn bowling club.
“The old lawn bowling club has fallen out of favour, so we are sort of reusing unused space to meet some of the modern sort of requirements, in this case the skateboard park,” says Legault.
According to Robert Dekker, co-chair of the planning committee at the Centretown Citizens Community Association, the revamped park will be warmly welcomed by the community.
“We think anything that is going to enhance and make it easier for people to access more programs, more activities, especially with the idea of keeping people active, that is always a positive for the association and for the members of the association,” he said.
What is unusual about the McNabb renovations is that it’s the first time the City of Ottawa has collaborated with the Ottawa Skateboarding Community Association to see what they would like the refurbished park to entail.
Aaron Cayer, director of the OSCA, says his organization is ecstatic to have its opinions heard and he believes it’s the first major step to being involved with future skateboard park construction projects.
The organization was allowed to give their opinion on what the park should look like and what obstacles should be included, but it soon became apparent that there was not enough money to build the park they envisioned.
The city then decided to give the OSCA the chance to make the park larger if its members could raise an additional $100,000 on top of the $300,000 in city funds already allocated to the skateboard park construction.
“With the $300,000, the facility is going to be OK. However with a small increase in funding, we realized we could make it great,” says Cayer.
In order to raise the $100,000, the group has initiated a program called “1 square foot” where every $40 donation gives them one more square foot of Skate Park.
So far, it has raised $20,000, according to Cayer, and there are plans to continue pushing towards the $100,000 target.
“We just applied for a community partnership major capitol program,” says Cayer who describes the program as an initiative by the city that matches the money raised by the OSCA dollar-for-dollar.
OSCA also runs monthly events raising up to $1,000 every time.