Westview Memorial Park master plan approved

Renderings submitted by Midwest Design Group and Landscape Architect Matthew Matthiesen

A master plan was approved for Spencer's only arboretum-style park by Spencer Park Board members this week. The plan for Westview Memorial Park, which was presented by local landscape architect Matt Matthiesen and Karl Van Cura of Midwest Design Group in Sioux City, carried a detailed phasing of the enhancements it proposes, as well as a rough $899,046 cost estimate tied to their realization.

Feedback offered by neighborhood residents on the concepts presented in the master plan during two meetings held this spring mirrored what was outlined in a site analysis of the park, Matthiesen reported to board members Tuesday night. Their input included preserving the park's existing mature evergreen and shade trees, which are currently grouped well, and enhancing them with 135 additional evergreens, ornamental and shade trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals.

"Throughout this entire site, I believe there's about a dozen, plus or minus, trees that I would foresee within the next 10 years either losing or cutting down because they're crowding some of the better species that we have there," Matthiesen said.

The master plan presented proposes preserving the open greenspaces on the park's east and west sides. It also suggests replacing its existing walkways with a looped eight-foot-wide concrete trail with brick banding. More applications of this brick detail would be found in the park's main seating area by a reflecting pool, as well as by its proposed rose garden and pergola area.

"I think the proposed walkways are pretty close to the same amount of square footage as the existing, just realigned. We did add a (10-foot wide) connector trail (to the east) in the concepts (presented during the public meetings), which everybody seemed to like," Matthiesen said. "One of the main things we talked about during the first meeting was the neighborhood in particular wants people to visit the park, but they don't want to have bikes and other small traffic going through this park. So, what we've done is we've broken that northeast to southwest main walkway up, and from the northwest to the southeast there's really no direct route. We thought by adding this connector trail into the final plan, ... it would bypass that altogether."

The landscape architect also outlined moving and increasing the park's main entrances. The approved master plan shows two entrances on the park's west side, one on its north and one along its eastern border. Intersections near each entrance with radiuses of brick and central focal points are also detailed in the plan. Matthiesen suggested placing some sort of public art, possibly a sculpture, in the intersection on Westview Memorial Park's northern border. As proposed, this stepped area would also include a natural stone retaining wall, a reflecting pool and seating area on top, along with extra shade trees and perennial plantings.

The reflecting pool is one of three natural garden areas suggested in the master plan.

"Overall, we tried to keep the site very natural," Matthiesen said of these specific park enhancements.

As proposed, a rain garden in the park's northeast corner and a butterfly garden in its southwest corner would be planted with native perennials.

"A lot of those perennial beds are going to be what we propose taking to the community to see if they want to volunteer to (install and) take care of those like they do the existing ones," Matthiesen told Spencer Park Board members. "We pretty much started over with the perennial beds just because we realigned the walkways and there really wasn't a reason to keep them exactly where they were. So, those are going to be moved and organized in these nodes. If there's a need for more, we could always put small planted areas along some of the stretches of trail."

Of the rain garden and boardwalk suggestion offered for the park's northeast corner, he explained, "If you're not familiar with rain gardens, they're basically an area to bring a lot, or all, of your drainage. It has amended soil that can take up to a certain amount of rainfall, depending on how big you size the rain garden, and eliminate a lot of the runoff that would end up going to these storm sewer intakes existing on the parking at the (adjoining Johnson Elementary) School's north side. ... We've also incorporated a green roof, which would be a structure built on top of the existing pump house. We would pipe any additional water that got through that roof garden down into the main rain garden. There would also be a potential to pipe some of the rain water off the school's parking. Where that intake is right now, we would block that off, cut the curb and let that flow right into the rain garden."

In order to accommodate the increased traffic expected to view this specific enhancement, the landscape architect suggested removing the two parking stalls currently located north of the park's pump house. Matthiesen then proposed doubling the parking spots and accentuating the newly-defined area with permeable pavers.

The Westview Memorial Park master plan also describes enhancing the existing rose garden. The possible addition of a pergola, natural benches and landscaping here would create a more private, enclosed area in the park's southeast corner, Matthiesen said.

Besides replacing and extending the existing vegetative screen on the park's south side, the master plan approved by board members also calls for a new stone sign on the park's northwest corner. It could possibly have "Westview Memorial Park" spelled out in metal letters with uplighting, Matthiesen explained.

As he divided the master plan work outlined Tuesday night into three potential phases, Matthiesen said the first phase could include removal of the park's existing brick walkways, concrete entry walks, benches and timber retaining wall.

"In phase one, the brick walkways would come out and the concrete walkways would go in. That would probably be the starting point. From there, you'd just have to decide where can we stop that. I think we could do the walkway up by the plaza and leave the paving, the fountain and the retaining wall for the second phase. But a lot of these brick areas in the intersections are going to have to probably be incorporated right into the concrete work, which boosts that cost up."

Of the $899,046 cost estimate tied to the master plan's site demolition, preparation, amenities and landscaping projects, Matthiesen told board members that the installation and consulting costs proposed would probably decrease with city staff participation.

"We tried to identify every cost that we have out there understanding that for some of this we're going to come in and do with staff, but it's still a cost," Spencer Parks and Recreation Director Delray Bredehoeft added. "The other obvious thing is this all isn't going to happen overnight. We're probably looking at this being a 10- to 20-year program. We're showing three phases here in this master plan, but it may be five or 10 phases. It'll just depend on the amount of funding we have available."

In other Spencer Park Board news:

* Board members learned that a dedication of the Freeman Township country schoolhouse will occur Saturday afternoon between 2 and 3 p.m. The former one-room country schoolhouse was moved in the fall of 2004 to its current River View Park site near the Spencer Family Aquatic Center. The June 13 dedication program is scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m.

* The board approved a park use request from the Okoboji Community Tennis Association to host an Aug. 7 - 8 junior tennis tournament on the River View and Fairview courts. This summer will mark the third year that Spencer tennis courts have been used for this tournament.

* Spencer Parks and Recreation Director Delray Bredehoeft told board members that a $120,000 Iowa Great Places grant application is being prepared. He also outlined a tentative Grand Avenue bridge and boulevard enhancement project timeline. Following a June 30 pre-bid meeting, the timeline has a July 6 public hearing, a July 14 bid opening, a July 20 awarding of contract and an Aug. 3 notice to proceed being issued to the contractor listed. Also tentatively scheduled in the Grand Avenue project timeline are an Aug. 1, 2010, substantial completion date and a Sept. 10, 2010, final completion date.

* The board learned that approximately 33 trees and a number of rose bushes were identified as needing to be replaced during a recent inspection done on the U.S. Highway 71 South tree-planting project awarded to Denny Klatt of Denny's Lawn and Landscape of Spencer. Substantial completion of the project was originally scheduled to occur by June 15, 2008.

* Bredehoeft reported a potential partnership is being sought with area volunteers and the Spencer Main Street program to maintain, and possibly pay for, the annual plantings in the over 80 planters located in downtown Spencer.

* Board members approved the approximately $7,500 repair of a pump for the tube slide at the Spencer Family Aquatic Center. Bredehoeft deemed it the facility's "highest volume pump" of its four pumps.

* Bredehoeft indicated he'd visited with Mark White, Spencer's public works director, and Jon Hjelm, a local developer, who have agreed to assist in the hauling of dirt to the proposed park in the Deerfield area of town in July and August. The Spencer Parks and Recreation Director also stated he intends to bring a grading plan for the park in for review during the Tuesday, July 14, board meeting.