Duchess Park Development Plans Scaled Back for 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012 @ 8:59 PM
Prince George, B.C.- The plans for Duchess Park have been scaled back for this year. The City had plans for the park development which would have cost $900 thousand dollars.
The City had applied for grants, and was hoping to get $634,000 in the form of grants.
The remaining budget was derived from the City’s Capital Expenditure Reserve ($246,000) and 3rd Party donations ($20,000).
That grant fell short.
The City only received $400 thousand in grant money, meaning part of the project will not move forward this year.
The Duchess Park Phase 2 project allowed for the installation of an accessible playground, an amphi-theatre, a hard surface tennis/basketball court with lighting, a mini bike park, paved and gravel surface walkways with lighting, public art, site furnishings and the planting of trees.
With the reduced budget amount, the amphi-theatre will not be constructed in 2012. This project will be placed in the Capital Expenditure Plan for consideration in future years. The mini–bike park will also have to be scaled back in consideration of the budget.
The estimated construction start date for the project is May of 2012 with the completion of the project estimated October of 2012.
Comments
$900,000 dollars for a park in PG? A hunnert thousand short of a million bucks? Wow! A “amphi-theater? Sure hope the neighbours were to be informed about this theater.A mini bike course? How ’60s ish. Youth in this century have progressed to trail bikes being ridden down public thoroughfares at all hours. What a town. IMO.
Why the flying “bleep, bleep, bleep” would they build an amphi-theatre there in the first place? Seriously?! How many months of the year could it be used?
I am sure the community was consulted about the amphitheatre. They have wanted a small theatre for decades. There were plans to build one in one of the spaces between two wings of the old Duchess Park School.
I think an amphitheatre would have a very high probability of being used more often by skateboarders than by people watching orators at our new “speaker’s corner”.
I think a good designer could come up with a wonderful design which would integrate seating with speaker podium and some more specialized skateboarding challenges.
What happened to the soap box and the bull horn??
We need a Speakers Corner like they have in Hyde Park in London England. Then we could vent our spleen to all who would listen on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
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