Park revamp part of stormwater plan

The small, makeshift park at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Monroe Street is seen by many but visited by few.

The parkland is ringed by roads, and most of it is hugged by the on-ramp for Interstate 90 heading east. The trees in the park, which is owned by the state transportation department and technically not really a park, once offered shade to dozing visitors.

But like the benches that were removed months ago, more than 20 trees in the park came down this week, and just two are left standing amid the strewn dirt and tracks of heavy machinery. The city will begin excavating the property next week, the beginning of a $5.5 million project that will remake Lincoln and Monroe streets from Eighth Avenue to Main Avenue.

“We need some place to put stormwater,” utilities spokeswoman Marlene Feist said about the park, which city officials have taken to calling Jefferson Camp. “Further up on Lincoln, there was room to put stormwater features along the road. As you get to more urban sections of the couplet, there isn’t as much room.”

Instead of storm gardens – which are basically wide, landscaped gutters that collect road runoff – the park will act as one big catch basin.

Feist promised it won’t get soggy. Not too much, anyway.

“Is it possible after a big rain? It’s possible. It definitely can be wet,” she said, noting that the stormwater will be driven by gravity down the hill and collect at its base. “It’s not meant to be a park. In the middle of an on-ramp is certainly not the safest place for people to be. This is surrounded – wrapped, really – by high-speed traffic lanes.”

After the park is rebuilt as a stormwater catch basin, its surface will be landscaped with grass, a river rock retaining wall as high as 7 feet tall and some new street trees. Feist said the plan is “crime prevention through environmental design.”

“It’s visible, so there’s eyes on the location,” she said, adding that the new design would discourage the “unattractive nuisance of large gatherings of people.”

Julie Happy, spokeswoman for the city’s Business and Developer Services division, said the excavation work will begin Monday, but no streets will be closed until Aug. 17. Shamrock Construction won the bid for the entire project, which will be paid for entirely by federal funds, Happy said.

At that time, Fourth and Fifth avenues will be closed and under construction. Monroe and Lincoln won’t be closed until the spring, when the technically difficult work of rebuilding such steep streets will commence. The city is planning to shut down the streets at different times in an attempt to avoid creating too much hassle for people who regularly use them.