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A map put together at last year’s charette concerning Pacific Park shows the new design for the space, which will include a multi-use basket- and volleyball court and a community building. Courtesy/City of Sulphur Springs, Marc Maxwell
Maxwell hopes for July resolution for citizen vote to fund updates
Citizens had a sneak peek Tuesday, June 4 at what Pacific Park might look like when the renovation project is completed. City manager Mark Maxwell presented sketches and a funding option to those present at city council during the regular June meeting.
The first item on Maxwell’s report was a solution for a drainage issue the park faces at the corner of Carter Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The gutters, which hold water, become a “fishpond” when it rains, according to Maxwell.
The engineering and implementation of a valley gutter system, Maxwell said, will be a “simpler and less expensive” alternative than rerouting drainage underground.
While the council approved $85,000 at a September 2018 meeting to fix the drainage issue, Maxwell thinks this new solution for the park will only cost $50,000.
Audience members voiced verbal approval of renderings of a plan for Pacific Park that Maxwell showed.
This included a rough sketch created at the October 25, 2018 charette which marked the locations of the Grays building, green areas, restrooms and a sports pavilion.
It also included a photo titled “Portacool Park” depicting a multipurpose covered pavilion with two full-size basketball courts on one end, designed so the space can be converted to a volleyball court.
Maxwell said both images were a direct result of the original planning charette and the landscape architect involved in Coleman Park.
“We had a charette at the existing Grays building. People were coming and going, ideas were flying, and this is what we came up with,” he said.
Maxwell says the intention of the updated park will be to host not only basketball and volleyball, but family reunions, church retreats or “whatever — it’s a very flexible space.”
Maxwell further proposed a mechanism to pay for both the majority of Pacific Park as well as a new senior citizen center.
“Both of them need some love,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell proposed a plan similar to the 1999 funding of Coleman Park. In this instance, Maxwell said, the taxpayers voted to take $150,000 per year for 20 years from a 4A tax entity, the Economic Development Corporation, and put towards a 4B project, the park.
This year, 2019, marks the final year of the Coleman Park agreement.
“Let’s do it again,” Maxwell said. “Only this time, let’s ask the voters if they want to approve the expenditure of $200,000 per year.”
Maxwell told the council that this will cover the expenses associated with updating Pacific Park as well as constructing a new senior center. $1.5 million will be directed to Pacific Park from this vote. The city will also pursue a half million dollar grant from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife, Maxwell said.
As for the senior center, $1.5 million of the revenues from the vote will be directed towards the project, Maxwell said. Maxwell told the News-Telegram Sulphur Springs Senior Citizens Center director Karon Weatherman raised funds that would also defray costs.
It’s a higher amount than the Coleman Park expenditure, Maxwell noted, but a lower percentage of EDC revenue, because since 1999, EDC revenue has doubled.
As for future plans for the sites, Maxwell said the city will want to “raise the ground by a couple of feet” on the site of the senior citizen center since it is prone to flooding. They also plan to build on the higher end of the lot and put the parking lot on the lower end to help mitigate flooding concerns further, Maxwell said.
“We’ve been wrestling with this problem for a long time. We know that Pacific Park needs some love, and we know that we’re bursting at the seams at the senior center,” Maxwell said. “It was right at the time where the EDC made their last payment [on Coleman Park]. It was just kind of a perfect storm.”
EDC executive director Roger Feagley said, “If the citizens want a park over there more than they want another business here in town, that’s the decision the voters get to make.”
However, Feagley said, the EDC is “not upset” and will support the city council and the Pacific Park project, “If the voters choose to do that.”