Warren

New park on Nine Mile approved

By Brian Louwers
C & G Staff Writer

WARREN — After sending some mixed signals previously, the Warren City Council has approved the use of federal funds to build a new park on Nine Mile next to the city’s existing Owen Jax Recreation Center.

With a series of 6-3 votes on Aug. 24, council members awarded both a bid for more than $850,000 in site improvements and construction for the park, to be built on Nine Mile east of Van Dyke, and the necessary steps to fund it.

The votes came two weeks after the council narrowly voted to approve the work but stopped just short of approving two items necessary to put the funding in place.

As it now stands, the city will use its remaining funding available through the federal government’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program to construct the park, billed by Warren Director of Community, Economic and Downtown Development Gina Cavaliere as a “much-needed anchor” in the neighborhood and one that was approvable under NSP guidelines. Work in the area will include a new park for small children where the parking lot for Owen Jax currently exists, to the west of Warren Fire Station No. 1. The project will also involve razing a dilapidated machine shop nearby, previously acquired by the city with federal funds, and the construction of new parking lot for the park and the recreation center.

Council Secretary Keith Sadowski and council members Robert Boccomino, Pat Green, Mark Liss, Scott Stevens and Steven Warner voted in favor of the items approved on Aug. 24. Both Liss and Stevens had previously opposed the park.

“I was, at the last meeting, wholeheartedly against the park,” said Stevens, who had expressed concerns about the location of park’s play structures and their proximity to Nine Mile Road.  Stevens, who said he visited the area and took measurements there himself, said his observations led to a change of heart about the plan.

“After going down there, wheeling off the distance, I feel confident that (safety) is not an issue,” Stevens said. “I spend a lot of time in the area. There are a lot of young kids that wander up and down those streets. I like the idea of having a destination for those kids to go.”

Council members wrestled with the park option as a deadline of Sept. 19 approached to put a plan in place to use the city’s remaining available NSP funding. A previous plan to use $1.6 million in federal money — along with some unallocated funds from the city’s Downtown Development Authority district — to construct a neighborhood resource center on Van Dyke south of Nine Mile failed.

Opponents of the plan, including Council member Kathy Vogt, who previously voted against the funding measures but in favor of the awarding the contract for the park’s construction, likened the project to spending money “for the sake of spending money.”

Vogt had filed a motion to reconsider her vote in favor of awarding the bid.

“Really, it’s an ill-conceived plan to spend money for the sake of spending money,” Vogt said. “I think it’s a bad idea to put a children’s park on Nine Mile Road. I think it’s a bad idea to have it next door to a fire department.

“I can’t see it. We’ve got parks down there. They’re not being properly maintained,” Vogt said.

Maintenance of the park was also a concern for Council President Mary Kamp, who cited Warren Parks and Recreation Director Henry Bowman’s concerns about vandalism in south Warren parks.

“How are we going to maintain it? Obviously, it’s going to revert over to Parks and Recreation,” Kamp said. “This isn’t just about what we approve today. It’s about long term. Where does the funding continue to go?”

Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church Pastor Roger Facione, whose congregation hosts a variety of outreach initiatives in south Warren, said the plan for the park was well-received by those who visited the church when the details about it were posted there last month.

“I just asked the neighborhood, because we have a lot of traffic, what their feeling was,” Facione said. “Many of them were families with young children who were saying they wanted to have a place where they could feel safe, where their children could be, and where they could go. There are many needs in Warren, and many needs in our end of Warren, for sure. This is one of those needs.”

Bowman said the park construction was expected to begin in the spring and that it could be opened to the public next year.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Brian Louwers at brianlouwers@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1089.