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The Westchester and Providence Pointe developments have adjacent park land that has been combined into an 11 acre park. The park has been identified as an "active use" park, which will include ball fields, ice skating/hockey, playground and support facilities. The design for the park was based on a community design process where residents help shape the park. The City Council approved the final plan on Aug. 8, 2007. The park will be constructed in 2007-2008. Most amenities should be ready for use in late 2008.
17th Avenue and Valley View Road
Final Schematic Design
Approved Plan
The park was completed and accepted by the City in November 2008. All items in the park are currently under warranty for two years. City staff is working with the contractor to correct any warranty issues. Dead or dying trees have been inventoried and will be replaced in 2009. The contractor is working on turf establishment throughout the park, ball fields and prairie areas. Fertilizer and additional seed has been applied to the park. The turf is establishing at a slower rate than desired and will be continually monitored.
The City's Parks Department is mowing the site sparingly to allow for turf establishment. The areas with the galvanized posts are prairie planting areas and will be mowed once in the late fall or early spring 2010. These areas are intended to be left to establish and will have minimal maintenance.
We ask that residents stay off the ball diamonds to allow for the turf to establish. The City anticipates utilizing the ball diamonds in spring 2010. A few minor changes will be made to the playground area in fall 2009.
A porta potty has been placed at the park until a permanent bathroom facility can be constructed. The bathroom/warming house building has an anticipated construction date of 2010/2011.
We appreciate the community's patience as we work through the warranty items of the park.
The park has been completed. The park will have a lighted hockey rink and a pleasure skating area available to the community this winter. A porta potty will be placed on site until permanent restroom facilities are constructed. The contactor will be maintaining the prairie areas for two years. Please be patient with these areas as they take a few years to establish. Staff will be making minor changes to the playground areas. The blue canopy on the 5-12 playground area that was vandalized will be reinstalled. It is anticipated that the ball fields will be established and usable in the spring.
The park is nearly complete and is being utilized heavily. Updates to the play areas have been made, and a few small changes may still be made as the park is completed. The slides of the 5-12 play area have been moved around to allow for ease of use. Unfortunately, the 5-12 play area has recently been vandalized; therefore, the canopy will be removed and patched and the slide surface will be attended to by the playground installers. The contractor is completing the final punch list items and will be addressing issues such as adjusting the picnic table and replacing plantings that have not survived the summer. Additional grading and seeding of much of the park will be completed in late September to ensure proper turf establishment.
The City has been receiving a number of calls regarding the tall grasses and weeds on the site. The City’s Parks Department is mowing the site sparingly to allow for turf establishment. The areas with the galvanized posts are prairie planting areas and will be mowed once in late fall or early spring of 2009. These areas are intended to be left to establish and will have minimal maintenance. The contractor will be maintaining these areas for two years per specific requirements.
Staff members have received a few questions about the shared hockey rink and Basketball court. This shared use is the City Council approved final plan. The design and approvals process for a park has many steps. Many residents participated in the neighborhood design process. This process was to gather input and create schematic designs. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board reviews the schematic designs and resident input and recommends a final schematic design to City Council. City Council approves the final schematic plan and authorizes construction drawings and bidding. The completed bid documents are the final approved plan. The City Council awards the bid to the contractor.
The bid documents typically include alternates to reduce the park costs in the event that the bids are over budget. The base bid for this project included a paved hockey rink combined with a basketball court. In other cities with paved hockey rinks, this shared use has been successful. Some cities have paved rinks with inline hockey, but the usage level of these facilities can be very low (which varies with the neighborhood demographics). In the final approval process, the Council discussed this concern. In order to use City park funds responsibly, they chose the shared use to ensure this facility is well used and the money spent on it is a good investment. A bid alternate to reduce costs had an unpaved hockey rink and a freestanding paved basketball court. Since the project came in budget, the alternate with unpaved hockey and a separate basketball was not selected.
When the park is fully completed, the city will monitor how well this shared use is working. This is the first of this kind of facility in the City. Signage may be posted if necessary. In the future, this amenity can be re-evaluated and the space is available for the freestanding basketball court. However, the funding for this will have to be evaluated in the annual Capital Improvement Budgeting process. The current list of waiting projects is quite full and funding is limited.If you have further questions about this park, please feel free to contact Jamie Polley, Director of Parks Recreation and Natural Resources at jpolley@ci.shakopee.mn.us.
Construction of Westminster Park is continuing and we have extended the date for completion by two weeks, to June 27, 2008. This date was extended last week when review of the site found that there are still several items left to complete. Although the contractor has been working diligently, the unusually cool and wet spring has caused delays. Work on finish grading, concrete, planting and other items continues. Paving was completed on Monday the 16th. Installation of the 2-5 play equipment and sand equipment is almost complete with the exception of a small climbing boulder. Installation of the swings and 5-12 playground should be completed by Tuesday, June 24. The park's hard surfaces and equipment installations should be available for residents to use at the end of this week, but final inspections and repairs to accept the work may continue into early July. Most of the park will be seeded, so seeded areas should not be used until after the seed is well established. The ball fields will be closed until next spring. We anticipate planning the official grand opening of the park in July or August in order to allow for the finishing touches to be completed.
Spring construction will begin soon. Though there have been a few sunny and warm days, the soil has been wet and the frost was slow to come out this year. The park is still on schedule for it's completion in mid-June, so watch for a lot of activity in May and June on this site. The park will be taking its final shape fairly quickly. The playgrounds will be installed in June, so they will not conflict with other work on the site.
The utility stubs for the future restroom and warming building and ball field irrigation were installed in January. The building itself has been deferred to 2009. Work in the spring will continue on most of the park amenities, walks, trails, playground, fencing ball fields and seeding turf. The parking lot and trails in the park will also be paved. The planned completion date for the park is June 30.
Addendum #1 was issued to Plan holders on Thursday, August 30. This addendum changed the bid opening to September 11 and the anticipated Bid Award by City Council to September 18. A second addendum will be mailed out to plan holders on September 4, re-issuing sections of the spec and the bid proposal. The completion date for the project has not been changed.
The City Council approved the plans for the park on August 8. Next, the project will be advertised for contractors to submit bids. The bid opening is scheduled for August 31. If an acceptable number of bids are received (and they are within budget), the City Council will award the bid on September 4. Construction could begin as early as late September. Here is a link to the approved plan.
Based on the size of the project and start date of the construction, the estimated completion date will be June 2008. Depending on weather, much of the work could be completed before the end of the year, with a few exceptions. Turf grasses will likely be seeded late in the season so they will begin to grow next spring. (It typically takes at least a full year for moderate turf cover to establish.) The features that likely will not be completed until next year are: the hockey rink, basketball court and final layer on the parking lot (due to seasonal limits on producing asphalt pavement).
The restroom and warming building is currently planned to be designed and bid out for next year's construction as well. The building's estimated construction will be late summer or fall of 2008.
Though this construction start is a bit later than anticipated, it will be very exciting to get it underway! Thanks for your patience during this process.
The park construction drawings are underway. The drawings and bid package preparation will take several more weeks. When it is complete, a public bid process will be advertised. A tentative start for construction to begin will be in mid-to-late August and construction will continue for several months. The park is expected to be completed this year, but weather and other factors could cause delays.
More information on the construction start date will be available when the bid package is complete in late July.
The playground design selection recommended by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board was approved by City Council on March 6, 2007. The design for the two to five year old play area from Landscape Structures was selected. It included several unique and fun features -- a small play structure with slides and climbers, a spring see-saw, a mobius climber, a small climbing boulder and two saddle spinners, as well as a sand play table. The structure for ages 5-12 from Burke also was selected. It has slides, a satellite climber and monkey bars. Also included in this section are eight swings for all ages (3 bucket, 1 ADA, and 4 belt).
Work on the Construction drawings will begin soon. Future updates will be posted when bidding and construction dates are available.
A playground design selection meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 15. (Please check the upcoming meetings page for more information.) All residents, especially children, are encouraged to come choose which playground looks like the most fun. The results of this meeting will be presented to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (PRAB) on Feb. 26 and to the City Council on March 6. Residents are always welcome and encouraged to present their thoughts to the PRAB and the City Council directly. REMINDER: The City Council will be asked to approve the final schematic design for the park master plan at its Feb. 20 meeting.
The second neighborhood design meeting was held Jan. 9. Many residents came to see the final proposed schematic design for the park. During the meeting, a handout of common questions from the first neighborhood meeting was shared. Actual comments from that meeting are available here. City staff members currently are reviewing the comments from the second meeting and preparing a staff report to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (PRAB) for their January 22 meeting. Residents interested in the park design may provide feedback to the PRAB by attending the meeting (Jan. 22, at 7:00 p.m., at City Hall, 129 S. Holmes Street). The PRAB's recommendation will be presented to the City Council in February (meeting date TBD). Another neighborhood meeting will be scheduled in February to select playground designs for the two play areas (ages 2 - 5 and ages 5 - 12).
The first neighborhood meeting was a great success. Thank you to the 60+ residents who attended, as well as those who provided feedback by email. The City is currently processing the feedback, revising the favored schematic option into a final schematic design, and preparing schematic cost estimates for the design. The final schematic design will be presented on Jan. 9 and will be posted on this web page. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board's recommendation will be sought at the January 22 meeting. That recommendation will be sent to the City Council for approval in February. Providence Westchester Park Design Dec. 13 Presentation
The first meeting of the Neighborhood Design Process has been scheduled for Dec. 12. The Neighborhood Design Process allows nearby residents to get a preview of park plans and help select options to refine the design of the park before it is presented to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board for a recommendation and to the City Council for approval. This process typically consists of three meetings: introduction and site diagrams (December), schematic designs (January) and playground designs (February). Please check the upcoming meetings page for further information.
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