POWELL — Powell has adopted a new long-term vision for its parks system, outlining millions of dollars in improvements over the next 15 years.
On Tuesday, Powell City Council approved two key plans that will shape the future of the city’s parks: the Bennett Farm Master Plan and the Parks and Recreation Master Plan.
The Parks and Recreation Master Plan evaluates Powell’s parks and recreation system, assesses current and future community needs, and establishes a 15-year roadmap for capital improvements.
It also recommends projects for each city park, organized into priority tiers based on timing and need. Priority one items are those to be completed in the near future, with an estimated total cost of approximately $5.8-6.4 million across all parks.
The plan found five key findings:
- Recreation and program growth requires committed investment in staffing, funding and facilities.
- The city needs a larger multi-use community center for programming.
- Park programs should expand to serve teens and older adults aged 70 and above.
- Residents want a dog park, and Bennett Farm may be the future site for it.
- 18% of programming is in “a saturation life cycle stage,” meaning the programs are at full capacity.
Meanwhile, the Bennett Farm Master Plan establishes a conceptual framework for developing the former sheep grazing pasture into a “nature-centered destination park.”
If the city follows the recommendations from MKSK, the consulting company who prepared the plan, developing Bennett Farm would cost $17.1 million.
The plan centers on passive recreation, and key amenities include:
- A shared-use path extension
- A new restroom facility
- An event lawn with meadow overlook swings
- Rolling and flat meadow areas
- Potential mountain biking trails
- A trail network
- Wetland boardwalks
- An approximately 3,200-square-foot community event barn
- Updated Arbor Ridge play areas
- A potential dog park
- A parking lot composed of 45 spaces with potential for approximately 50 additional spaces
City Manager Andy White can now initiate the schematic design phase for Bennett Farm, which reconciles the conceptual plan with detailed site conditions and provides an accurate final cost.
What’s in the master plan?
The Parks and Recreation Master Plan breaks down recommended improvements for each park and the overall programming by priorities.
The top priority for parks is multi-use hiking, biking and walking trails; the second priority is a community center; and the third priority is walking paths in parks.
For programming, the first priority is adult fitness/wellness programs, exercise classes and pickleball and tennis lessons and leagues — however, these classes “will require new indoor space that does not exist today.”
There’s an overarching theme throughout the entire plan: investment, investment, investment.
“Following through on these recommendations will require new facilities, upgraded and new parks and new programs and activities. All of this will require investments in places and spaces and in staff and resources,” the plan states.
Some major, broad recommendations from MKSK were to:
- Eventually replace all playgrounds.
- Cease organized sports operations at the existing fields and instead opt for a “flexible” field space.
- Ditch the Village Green Amphitheater and install a larger, updated venue. The plan suggests Seldom Seen Park as the best potential location for a venue.
The Parks and Recreation Master Plan was significantly shaped by community input. Officials received 454 mail survey responses, 470 online survey responses, and hosted two community open houses, two pop-up events, four focus groups and three steering committee meetings.
“Part of the work we did was then to look at every single park, then apply some of these things we learned from the community and from the analysis to each and every park,” MKSK principal Andrew Overbeck told council.
The vision for each park
The following are recommendations from MKSK to Powell officials for each of the specific parks mentioned in the Parks and Recreation Master Plan.
Find example imagery of these project ideas in the MKSK presentation to council.
Adventure Park
- Expanding parking spaces
- Updating the skatepark
- Adding a bicycle pump track
- Adding a native meadow with swing benches
- Adding an outdoor adventure course and creating a “destination adventure” play area
- Create an open-air pavilion
- Incorporate riparian woodland trail
Library Park and Black Oak Park
- Convert the existing sports fields into a flex lawn.
- Add swinging benches along park trails and add a woodland trail loop in Black Oak.
- Install stepped ‘amphitheater’ style seating for small neighborhood events.
- Replace the playground to a new one with a storytelling theme.
- Add a hammock garden.
- Add native meadows
- Improve the road crossing to Black Oak.
Meadowview Park
- Expand the woodland trail into a loop.
- Incorporate parallel parking along the park side of Ashmore Drive.
- Add an open-air pavilion with picnic tables.
- Replace the playground with a nature play area.
- Add a summer house with fishing dock.
- Install stone outcropping at the pond edge to provide informal water access and plant native meadow along the pond edge.
- Integrate interpretive signage throughout the park.
Murphy Park
- Enhance parking, entry drive and connections to businesses.
- Incorporate sculptural benches, hanging art and lighting installations along the existing loop trail.
- Update play areas to be used by multiple age levels and incorporate themed race-car play in the park.
- Add a plaza.
- Add sidewalk and crosswalk striping along the northern edge of the property.
- Increase the buffer between the park road and paths with native plants and woodland.
Reserve at Scioto Glenn Park
- Reconfigure the trail layout and add benches along the trail.
- Install a wetland observation deck.
- Add native meadows and a mown meadow path.
- Incorporate an open-air pavilion with community picnic tables
- Add community gardens plots.
- Replace the playground with a multi-age play area.
Seldom Seen Park
The recommendations from MKSK to Seldom Seen Park are the most expensive and ambitious projects.
- Renovating existing nature play and expanding play features.
- Reforesting edges of the park.
- Updating the pavilion and restrooms.
- Installing new boardwalk trails through the existing wetlands and adding new walking trails with benches along all trails.
- Adding three-season shelters.
- Transitioning soccer and baseball fields to an event lawn and flex fields.
- Incorporating a water feature/splash pad
- Installing an amphitheater for large events that could accommodate up to 3,740 people.
- Building a new community center.
Village Green
Overbeck told council the Village Green plans do not have a price associated with them because the plans will be moot if the city redevelops the park with the separate Village Green Master Plan.
But if those development plans do not move forward and the city opts to keep the space a park, MKSK recommends:
- Providing seating around the pond.
- Relocating the amphitheater to the southern boundary of the park.
- Updating the play equipment, including the splash pad.
- Adding swinging benches along the path.
- Potentially relocating the Veterans Memorial.
Next steps
Approval of the plan merely lays the groundwork of sequential next steps — it does not commit the city to any immediate capital expenditure.
Finding funding to complete the projects will be essential in executing the plans over the next 15 years.
“We have a lot of really good projects. We have resource allocation to consider on how we shape this puzzle,” City Manager Andy White said.
Overbeck previously told council MKSK typically spends 12 to 18 months on design and 18 to 36 months on construction, depending on the size of each phase.
