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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