Cross Street playground June, 2019. (Hope E. Tremblay Photo)
WESTFIELD – After receiving signatures from the Park & Recreation committee members on Dec. 9, Community Development Director Peter J. Miller said there is only on step left before turning in the paperwork for the $400,000 state PARC grant, which will allow the city to go forward with an all-abilities playground on Cross Street.
The last step is for Free Cash to be certified, which includes $300,000 of Community Preservation Act funds left over from last year, which has been granted to the playground. Miller is hopeful the Free Cash will be certified in time for a vote by the City Council, which has already approved the playground, at its Dec. 19 meeting. The paperwork for the grant must be turned in by Jan. 1.
Other funding for the playground, with a total cost of over $900,000 includes $207,000 from Stabilization, and $75,000 from the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities. Of that amount, one-third is for site improvements, one-third for accessible surfacing, and one-third for equipment.
The surface they are looking at is a poured in place rubber, not to be confused with crumb rubber, on which there is a moratorium in the city, Miller said,
Miller said the city received the grant based on a concept plan. The next step will be to work on full engineering of the design by R. Levesque, who has been hired to do the drawing. That work will be done from January through the end of May, and will include one more community meeting on the design. The last community meeting was held in June of 2019.
The city will then advertise in June for construction of the playground, which they hope to start in August following Little League season, and put on the finishing touches in the spring of 2021. The project must be completed by June 1, 2021.
“I’m excited to finally put this together for the neighborhood advocates who have been asking for this for a long time. It will be a big help towards revitalizing the neighborhood,” Miller said.
The playground will not touch the Little League side of the park. Miller said the league spent private funds to renovate that field this year.
There has also been some advocacy to put back a second ballfield that used to be in the park before the school building project began. Miller said they will continue to work on that through June, to see if there is a way to include it in their plans. He said there is also a question of whether there is still a need for another ballfield, or for more general purpose space.
“We designed it in such a way that it wouldn’t be precluded. There still will be plenty of space to accommodate a second field,” Miller said.
