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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-14-18 PARC �4sp[TTH g� ,f W � PS CE x x 1865 OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMAH FOWLER, CITY CLERK PARC COMMITTEE MAY 14, 2018 4:30 P.M. Committee Members Present: Sharon L. McBride, Dr. David Varner, Oliver Davis, John Voorde, John Mazurkiewicz (citizen member), Erin Patzkowsky (citizen member) Committee Members Absent: None Other Council Present: Regina Williams-Preston, Karen White, Tim Scott Other Council Absent: Jo M. Broden, Gavin Ferlic Others Present: Kareemah Fowler, Bianca Tirado, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer Presenters: Tracy Skibins,Aaron Perri Agenda: Update-Aaron Perri- Venues, Parks & Arts Committee Chair Sharon L. McBride called the PARC Committee to order at 4:30 p.m. She introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to give the floor to Committeemember John Mazurkiewicz. Committeemember John Mazurkiewicz stated,As I think everybody here knows, Councilmember Sharon McBride had a bus trip with various members within the third (3rd) district. There were a variety of neighborhood leaders. It was something that I saw that was brought up. There was a park over on the South Side called Randolph. I don't want to be negative but the place was a pit. It was embarrassing to know that it was a South Bend City Park. I've talked with Sharon a few times about it and I want to possibly get neighborhood groups to volunteer and put some effort together for that. Obviously it would have to be something we arrange through the Parks but we might only need some trash bags and containers. I think we could very easily get people to volunteer two or three hours to go out there. There was a lot of comment on the Facebook pages of the neighborhoods. Tracy Skibins,Deputy Director of Code Enforcement with offices on the 13th floor of the County- City Building, stated, On that tour, Gary did take notes and we have actually taken that list and have identified who is responsible for each concern. There are quite a few that Code Enforcement is responsible for and this is where NEAT Crew and Code Enforcement can help organize those clean-ups. Committee Chair McBride then gave the floor to the presenters. INTEGRITY1 SERVICE1 ACCESSIBILITY JENNIFER M.COFFMAN BLANCA L.TmADO JOSEPH R MOIKAR CHIEF DEPUTY/Dnu=oR OF OPERATIONS DEPVrr/DmECroR OF Poucx ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Blvd.I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.92211 f 574.235.9173 1 www.southbendin.gov CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Update-Aaron Perri-Venues,Parks & Arts Aaron Perri, Executive Director of Venues, Parks & Arts with offices at 321 E. Walter Street, stated, Thank you for the invitation, Councilmember McBride. I saw the article in the paper and was sad I missed the tour. Any time you have the next ones, please let me know. What I want to do is remind everyone of the big initiative My SB Parks & Trails. It touches each one (1) of your districts in big ways. Each district has a marquee project as well as neighborhood parks. The neighborhood parks are where we need the most help. Right now the ones that look the best are the ones that the neighborhoods actually own. We will gladly partner to help make things possible. Kelly Park is a great example of that. Freemont is another one (1) of those that the neighborhood adopted. To the point of Randolph, we do have some plans. Mr. Perri continued, mysbparksandtrails.com will show all of the major projects that are happening. But also on our website we have all of our construction projects spelled out in a chart. This (referencing a slide in the presentation that is available in the City Clerk's Office) is how many pages it is but you can see exactly what is happening and when it is happening. We update this every other week. This is a great place to send people for information. In particular, I'm here to talk about the third (3`d) district. Ravina Park is getting underway pretty quickly. Engineering has been a great help on this project. Primarily what is happening in and around Ravina are sidewalks that are going in to improve connectivity and safety. There will be a walkway that gets you into the park and will terminate out on an overlook. There is also going to be a lot of bank stabilization work to help protect the integrity of the bank. Mr. Perri went on, As shown before,this (referencing a map in the slide of the presentation) is the Trust for Public Land Map. The dark green are parks, the light green are the areas serviced very well by parks and as we approach yellow, orange and into the red, those are the areas that aren't served very well by parks. The third (3`d) district actually has two (2) areas that are areas we are trying to tackle right away. A couple ideas we have deal with the 35th Street wetland. A resident saw this map we put out, called us and stated there was a property his son and him like to hike on and he said he was always picking up trash. He suggested to use it more as a park and trail system. It is really on the edge of the City limits but you can see how densely populated this area is with no park. So we are zeroing in on that area a little more closely to hopefully acquire some property and formalize a trail system around it. It is a retention basin and is already formalized as a wetland by the Army Corps of Engineers. So we can't do a lot in the middle of the area but could look at what we can do on the outside. We are at the property acquisition phase of this plan and that is the first step. Committeemember John Voorde asked, Have you ever approached Walnut Grove? Mr. Perri replied, Walnut Grove hasn't been real amenable to sharing their park in terms of a formalized shared use agreement. We would certainly entertain that if they would allow us to do that but to date they haven't been real excited about that prospect. Committeemember Mazurkiewicz stated, It was also brought up in the bus trip the area directly across from Nuner. Who owns that area? I know it was also discussed as a possible plot for the fire station. Mr. Perri replied, I'm not sure but I will keep that in my notes. I'll get you the answer to that. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 l f574.235.9173I TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 2 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr. Perri went on,Another project that is in the works is some of the riverfront connectivity. A lot of people relate to the river walk that is on the North Side. There is actually a river walk on the South Side of the street too but it is very overgrown and trees have ruined the integrity of the walk way. It is also just not a comfortable walk. It is narrow and cars fly by there. We are working with Public Works who is taking a lead on looking at possible property acquisitions along that right-of- way. We want to widen that trail from Twyckenham to Sample. We know people use the river walk when it loops systems.Now you can have a nice loop right there. It connects a lot of the south east neighborhood to the rest of the great river walk which we like as a prospect. We are in the early stages of property acquisition. I know there has been conversation Downstate already and this is more than likely a 2019 project. Ms. Skibins stated,When you see work out there this fall, it won't necessarily be for the sidewalk. It will be because there is a repaving project and as a function of the repaving, we are moving the curb line in. That will allow the sidewalk to be wider. Mr. Perri continued, I threw this picture up just so you can understand how densely populated this area is around Randolph and it is one(1)tiny park that services it all. It is actually called Randolph Mini Park. We want to graduate it from a mini park to a full on adult park. What we have right now on the property acquisition list is that blue parcel. We would like to pursue a closure of that alley by Sampson and be able to link both sides of the property into something more like this. We hear basketball is a great need in that neighborhood so we have been doing these half-court basketball courts. Kelly Park is a great example of those. They face away from each other and it allows two (2) games to be going on, one (1) with little kids and one (1) with bigger kids to play on separate courts.There will be a small pavilion in the middle.We plan to relocate the playground on the other side where there is a little bit more. That is kind of the plan for that neighborhood park. Up north of that is another retention basin. We are wondering if we are able to put a couple soccer goals in the retention basin. Mr. Perri went on,Also in the third(3rd)district is the most marquee park in the City: Potawatomi. We are renewing our public-private partnership with the Zoological Society. It's hard to believe but the old one (1) expires at the end of this year so we have been renegotiating. Part of that renegotiation will include $5 million for capital investments. That will help with the new entrance and new exhibits. Interestingly enough, Rod Goodchild got his flag request granted. Mr. Perri continued, There are a couple of other things in the third (3rd) district I would like to highlight. South East Park, which has gotten some good investment over the last few years with the splash pad, is being upgraded. We are upgrading all the restrooms in every single park to be ADA compliant. None of them currently are. We also have a partnership with the Society of Women Engineers out at the University of Notre Dame who will be piloting Wi-Fi at this park. We eventually would like to get to a point where we have Wi-Fi in all our parks. Our hope is to close that digital divide. The last park in the third (3rd) district I will mention is Veteran's Memorial. It saw major improvement to its softball field thanks to a partnership with IUSB. They use it as their home softball field. They use it about twenty-one (2 1)days a year and the rest of the year it is a public park for all of us to enjoy. I would like to come back and do this sort of presentation for each district. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 1 TFD 574.235.5567 I www.southbendin.gov 3 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr. Perri went on,There are a few other things I would like to show you as I am asked about these bigger high-profile projects. Howard Park will see construction starting late summer at this point. We have had a few setbacks but we are working on it. There are some wonderful renderings online. There are different parks throughout the City. You got your neighborhood parks, then you have the City-wide parks, but then there are the regional parks that we hope draw in people from all over the area. The other one(1)I will give you an update on is Seitz Park. These are the renderings and we haven't even posted these on the website yet. It will have restrooms in it for the first time ever. Committee Chair McBride opened the floor to questions and comments from Committee and Council Members. Committeemember Erin Patzkowsky asked, Is there anything we can do to get the clean-up kicked off? Committee Chair McBride replied, I have a meeting with the Sunnymeade Neighborhood Association as well as SOAR. I will get some dates for the clean-up and propose them to the Committee. Mr. Perri replied, We have also started our volunteer program. It is about nine (9) months old officially. We are helping people log volunteer hours. They get invited to annual volunteer events and if you get any volunteers, we would love to get them into the data base. Councilmember Karen White asked, Could we get an update on the Charles Black Center in terms of progress and when it's going to open? Are there any changes? As you may be aware when we started talking about the West Side streets there were some issues there. I want to make sure we are still heading in the right direction. Mr. Perri replied, I understand and can provide that update at the next meeting. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston asked,Will 100 Black Men have an office in the Charles Black? Mr. Perri replied, I am not aware of that. Councilmember White stated, They do have an office at the Charles Martin Youth Center. Committeemember Oliver Davis asked, Can we get the sixth (6th) district updates at the next meeting? Mr. Perri replied, Sure. Committee Chair McBride then opened the floor to comments from members of the public. Sue Kesim, 4022 Kennedy Drive, stated, I want to say that IDEA Week was awesome. I went to as much as I could so it was phenomenal. I really enjoyed that. I wanted to say that while I was at Oaken Bucket looking across the water, the flood took out like half of the tree roots. When you look across, the trees are hanging there. I just was wondering if you would be doing an analysis. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY ( INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 1 TTD574.235.5567 I www.southbendin.gov 4 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK So that was just a concern I had. I also want to talk to you about Martin's Greenhouse. It is on the West Side and has been there for thirty(30) years and it's Woman-owned. She's had a stroke, she has a disabled son, it's just everything. I'm wondering if the City could buy some flowers from her. She is a Woman-owned West Side business and I know there are initiatives to try and get more Women-owned businesses. Aaron, I would really appreciate it if you stopped by Martin's Greenhouse near the U-Haul on Western. Councilmember Scott stated, Bowman Creek is actually a cold water creek. It will support trout. We don't have that many of those around here. If you guys think about it, I have a few ideas and there are a few tools to shore up the banks and have some stream restoration to allow a fish habitat. It's basically wood made into a box put on a bank and covered with stone but it has a place where the fish can slide underneath. It is basically an artificial undercut bank. We can talk about that all day long but please think about that. Mr. Perri stated, I'm happy to report that the Charles Black Center is on time and on budget. The Rum Village Dog Park is on time and on budget as well. It should come out around early August 2018. And finally in terms of trail repairs because of the flood, that has been evaluated. There is close to $2.5 million worth of damages. Work will get underway as soon as we get it contracted. Some of those bank stabilization efforts are going to be some of the more expensive ones. Best. Week. Ever. starts Monday, May 28th, 2018. With no further discussion, Committee Chair McBride adjourned the PARC Committee at 4:30 p•—in• Respectfully Submitted, Yt Sharon McBride, Committee Chair EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building'227W.Jefferson BvldI South Bend,Indiana 466011p574.235.9221If574.235.9173 TTD574.235.55671www.southbendin.gov 5