Bryant City Council members on Tuesday pledged an additional $300,000 to renovate two parks.
The Parks Department will also use $250,000 in bond money from 2016, bringing the total money for the project to $550,000, Mayor Allen Scott said.
The money would go toward Ashley and Alcoa parks. Scott said the plan is to add a dog park to Alcoa and at Ashley Park to create three new baseball fields, replace fencing and upgrade the stadium lights.
Upgrading the f ields would allow Ashley to host tournaments that spill over from Bishop Park, also in Bryant. Tournament-level fields at Ashley would also provide a back-up tournament space if Bishop floods. Parks Director Chris Treat said he would eventually like to renovate the fields at Alcoa as well.
The bulk of the money would be spent on new stadium lights at Ashley, Treat said.
Currently the lights at Ashley don’t work.
“At this point as soon as it gets dark you can’t use those fields,” Treat said.
Treat said he looks to start demolition at the parks in July and also begin work on the dog park in the summer.
Animal Control Director Tricia Power said dog parks are very beneficial to households without large yards. The dog park will give dogs a large area to burn off steam and socialize with other dogs.
“That way they’re not immediately put on the defensive when they see another dog,” Power said.
Treat said he hopes to complete the renovations by the end of the year.
Th e re a re two m o re phases of redevelopments Treat said he would like to complete. The second phase, which would cost $600,000, would put new stadium lights at Alcoa, and the third phase, which would also cost $600,000, would add an indoor baseball and softball training facility.
The lights at Alcoa run rarely at the six fields throughout the park, but they cost the same to operate as the newer stadium lights that run regularly at the 15 fields at Bishop Park.
Upgrading the lights will eventually save the city money, Treat said.
“Oh it pays for itself,” he said about the lights.
The goal is to renovate two softball and one football fields at Alcoa and create two multipurpose fields. On top of that, Alcoa would become a trail hub.
“Ultimately we want to be able to have a trail system where you can get to any of the trails from Alcoa,” Treat said.
Treat said that since the city began construction on Bishop Park in 2007, the city’s resources have focused on Bishop, letting Alcoa and Ashley fall to the wayside.
“At this point I don’t think those parks portray what we want to communicate about ourselves,” Treat said.
Ashley and Alcoa have historical significance for the people of Bryant, and people care about these parks, he said.
“These parks, they’re assets,” Treat said. “I want to be a good steward of those assets.”
A University of Arkansas, Fayetteville group studied the Bryant park system and found that the city needs a well-funded capital budget to maintain and grow its parks.
Treat said the budget sits at $2.4 million but should be between $2.8 million and $3.2 million for a department of its size.
“That’s where we see our biggest gap, and that’s where we’re starting to try to catch up with that and make sure that year to year we’re putting the money back into these parks that we need to,” Treat said.
Parks improve the quality of people’s lives, Treat said. Scott added that a good parks system gives people a reason to move to Bryant.
Improving Ashley Park-is expected to bump up the property values of the homes surrounding it. Treat said it’s also important to renovate Alcoa park as it will be a prominent part of the town once the city completes the new Bryant Parkway, which will run right by the park.
Following these major projects at both Alcoa and Ashley, Treat said the Parks Department is considering where it wants to continue to spread throughout the community. The team is creating a master plan that will cover at least the next 20 years.
“We want to grow our parks system to serve as many people as we can,” Treat said.