The master plan for a transformation of Statesboro’s Memorial Park as part of the Creek on the Blue Mile project now envisions an amphitheater backed by an “interactive” fountain, a veterans monument plaza, pickleball courts, a two-level parking deck and dedicated space for food trucks.
The park, in the slightly curvy triangle bounded by Fair Road, Max Lockwood Drive and South Zetterower Avenue, is operated by the Bulloch County Recreation & Parks Department on city land. Under the plan shown to City Council members during a Nov. 21 work session, the Honey Bowen Building, which contains the Recreation & Parks headquarters, will be retained, and the long-established playground beside it renovated to include a splash pad.
James McNash, P.E., assistant project manager for Creek on the Blue Mile planning from the Freese and Nichols engineering firm, and Dan Fischer, landscape architect from EMC Engineering Services, gave an update on the overall planning and funding efforts. Some aspects of the park renovation plan are not included in the $28.6 million public infrastructure price tag for the larger Creek on the Blue Mile project.
With a board-mounted concept map on a tripod in front of the council members and the same image on video screens, Fischer gave what he called “a quick tour around the park.” To get to this point, the contracted design team had held several planning sessions with some interested local people.
“We have been through three design charrettes with the Creek on the Blue Mile Committee,” Fischer said. “So hopefully, you know, we’ve got it nailed down pretty good to where vision and goals are being met.”
He began his description at the north end of the park and indicated that Max Lockwood Drive will remain a one-way vehicle route. Just beyond the renovated playground with the splashpad, the map shows a pedestrian entrance to the park, with a sculpture and an entry arch.
“Turning to the left, we have large pavilion that will have restrooms. It will have nice lawn area and play space,” Fischer said. “I kind of think of this area as more of a kids’ zone, a lot of activity, where young children can have their parties and play space and go back and forth to the playground.”
Councilman John Riggs noted that this pavilion is near the site of the park’s vanished, historic “Pav-a-Lon,” structure.
“It will be the Pav-a-Lon forever,” Riggs quipped.
But the Pav-a-Lon – originally a picnic shelter and skating rink – and the long-disused pools beside it were demolished in 2016. No actual swimming pools are proposed for Memorial Park in the current plan.
Toward the interior of the park, where the current parking is behind the Honey Bowen Building, the new master plan shows a parking deck, with a single level above the paved ground-level parking surface.
“The goal is to have a parking deck there, second level, and that would double the parking in that area from about 50 to 55 up to about 110 spaces,” Fischer said.
Food trucks & pickleball
Near the corner where Max Lockwood Drive meets South Zetterower Avenue, a couple of pickleball courts have already been established where the old tennis courts were. The park master plan includes four pickleball courts, and this could be doubled to eight courts if needed, since a pickleball court takes up about a fourth as much space as a tennis court, Fischer said.
Then, to the right along Zetterower Avenue, the plan includes a food truck court. The map shows a paved area forming a short driveway off and back onto the street, with several parallel truck-parking spaces. Beside them to the interior of the park is a green space with some picnic tables.
The Willie McTell Trail, which already runs along the edge of the park, would be realigned slightly to pass behind this “food court” area.
The interior of the park allows “a lot of green” grassed and landscaped spaces for free play, as Fischer described it.
A portion of a storm drainage structure that flows from the north end of the park, currently as a buried pipe, would be “daylighted” as a mini-creek with river rocks through this area. Forming a small tributary to the main creek, it would be crossed by a footbridge and a stepping stone path. Designers propose to have water pumped to recirculate in this feature during dry seasons.
The altered channel of Little Lotts Creek itself with the planned tiered “linear park,” or promenade – the core of the larger Creek on the Blue Mile plan – will extend from Fair Road southwest of the green space beyond the parking structure and back to South Zetterower Avenue.
On the Memorial Park master plan, the creek and promenade curve behind the stage of the amphitheater, with three curved terraces for seating. Each will be fronted by a “wall seat” of brick or stone, but the grassed terrace will extend back 15 feet. The amphitheater should seat at least 300 people, either on the grass or in chairs, but the terraces could also accommodate festival tents, Fischer said.
A cascade fountain, fed by the intersecting smaller channel under the footbridge, is shown in the middle of the curve of the creek behind the stage.
Behind the amphitheater terraces, a smaller parking area is proposed along Fair Road. Beyond this, the monument to veterans and its plaza would fill the corner at Fair Road and South Zetterower.
Costs & funding
McNash answered, “Correct,” when Councilman Phil Boyum asked if he was right in thinking that the cost of the parking deck was not included in the current estimate for the Creek on the Blue Mile project.
The estimate of public infrastructure costs for the entire project, not limited to Memorial Park but including improvements to the creek channel, construction of the promenade with “linear park” features and replacement of two highway bridges, remains unchanged at $28.6 million from the previous design-phase progress report last spring.
But the contracted design team’s update for City Council highlighted “up to” $10.25 million in grant funding secured this year through at least “verbal commitments,” as McNash described it. At least some of these grants were reported earlier after announcements by state officials.
Two of the grants will go through the Georgia Department of Transportation, one being a $6.48 million award for bridge construction and utility line relocation; the other, a $2.12 million GDOT Transportation Alternatives grant for the walking path and promenade areas.
The third grant, a fully approved $1.65 million award from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, is COVID-era special federal funding allotted by the state through a program called Improving Neighborhood Outcomes in Disproportionately Impacted Communities.
The $2.12 million and $1.65 million grants require a 25% city match, totaling more than $900,000 local spending. The $6.4 bridge fund grant will include about $5 million federal funding and the rest from the state, so it requires no local match but a longer process to final approval, McNash said.
The city still has a $15.5 million Georgia Environmental Finance Authority line of credit announced five years ago for the project but will have to repay, with some interest, any of that money it uses. The largest portion of the $5.5 million in direct state funding announced in 2018 is being spent in the engineering and design phases.
The architect and engineer said the design work is now well past the 60% completion point of the April report but not quite to the 90% mark. The team will now be working with the Georgia DOT on more detailed planning and then with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permitting of the flood control aspects and changes to the creek, they said.