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An artist’s concept for a proposed park at the old kindergarten property on 147 North Park Street depicts parking, a shelter, a bicycle pump track and two ball courts.
Pickleball, basketball, a pavilion and a pump track are all part of the recently discussed conceptual design for a new City park and recreation space that would be located on the vacant downtown property at 147 North Park Street, commonly referred to as “the old kindergarten property.”
The initial proposal presented by City Manager Allison Martin at last week’s meeting recommends two parking lots, an upper lot with 35 spaces and a lower lot with seven spaces, a pavilion covering approximately 5,000 square feet, a 110’ x 70’ bicycle pump track with shelter, a basketball court and a pickleball court.
City staff are pursuing grants and matching funds to keep the price tag for the project low. Martin’s proposal is also reportedly designed to be non-permanent, so that officials could potentially change their minds about how to best utilize the property in the future.
“The DDA, after the meeting where the proposal was withdrawn, began to discuss different ideas for this piece of property, things that might benefit the community. So they asked me to work on getting a proposal together and a conceptual plan,” Martin said.
Martin said that features like the pump track, market shelter and ball courts were all ideas generated by the community. With those recommendations in mind, Martin reached out to a pair of landscape architects to do some preliminary renderings and lay out a design for the property.
“Our original concept for him was just to do an open air farmer’s market under this structure to protect them from the elements and the weather,” Martin said. “Some of the people that sell at the farmer’s market have goods that don’t do well in direct sunlight.”
Martin said that a design the artist had done for a similar community pavilion included a restroom and a small kitchen area with storage, so that the facility could be rented out for special events.
“It could become a revenue generator,” Martin said. “I believe you could rent that pavilion. You would have a place so that you could extend the life of your site at Hancock Park, you could allow it to be rented more for concerts and put the things over here that are high traffic and wear-and-tear.”
As for selling the North Park Street property to a developer outright, Martin said that the prospects for a deal that the council would be on board with are slim.
“We’ve only had one offer made that I’m aware of in the past two years that got close to the dollar amount that everyone has said they would like to see with the property. The other folks that have been interested in developing it want to offer a much lower purchase price, and they want economic incentives,” Martin said.
RECREATION REACTIONS
Mayor JoAnne Taylor gave her initial thoughts on Martin’s presentation before hearing comments from each of the individual council members.
“When you think about Dahlonega in 10, 15 or 20 years it’s clear that there is additional density that is coming whether we like it or not,” Taylor began. “This would give us another green space in the community, and Hancock Park I think would be a little healthier if we didn’t have festivals setting up tents every weekend; we could direct a lot of the festivals to this facility. So while it’s not the economic engine that a hotel might be, it certainly matters a lot to our residents as a quality of life kind of investment.”
Taylor cited the steady growth in the Hancock Park farmer’s market, which now features 30 vendors, as a reason to further explore the proposal.
“We have the demand, and we have a lot of people who would support it once the council lets us know what direction we need to go in,” Taylor said before opening the floor up to comments.
LANCE BAGLEY
Councilman Lance Bagley said he wouldn’t mind nixing the two ball courts in favor of additional parking on the site.
“I love the concept, but one thing you do need, and we don’t have a plan for yet, is parking … We have a Rec Center coming with new courts, maybe courts are something we could do away with. We could push the pavilion further up, and have more parking so it solves some of our parking needs short-term, as well,” Bagley suggested.
Bagley said that, in his view, it makes sense to do something with the site “that could add some value to our community,” rather than have it sit idle.
Bagley asked Martin if she would explain the pump course. Martin said it is a track for riders to mountain bike with carefully calculated elevation changes that minimize effort.
Bagley said the proposal was “pretty exciting” and a great starting point, but he said he would like to hear some community feedback.
JOHNNY ARIEMMA
Councilman Johnny Ariemma was next to add his take.
“I never thought it was the municipality’s responsibility to create jobs or make money. It’s just not part of our job description. This is such a beautiful concept. I really like it. And, as the Mayor stated, as time changes and the City grows we’re going to need more green space,” Ariemma stated.
Ariemma added that he would personally like to see a dog park included north of the pavilion area, but Martin seemed opposed to the suggestion.
“I don’t grimace because I’m anti-dog park, it’s just that any time you go to a County liability class that’s one of the things that they tell you as a government to stay out of, to let the non-profits do that so the City doesn’t have to take on the liability,” Martin said.
Ariemma’s other suggestion was to consider adding a playground to the site, similar to the concept playground at nearby Hancock Park.
“When ya’ll talked about putting the playground in, I choked at the price of what that thing cost. But what a great asset to our community. That place is wide open all the time, and people just love it, love it, love it. But it’s getting stressed out, too,” Ariemma said.
ROMAN GADDIS
Councilman Roman Gaddis said that all of the residents he had spoken with in the area were happy with the proposal, and so was he.
“All the people who live in that area like this concept more than any other concept that’s been floated to date. I think it’s a wonderful solution,” Gaddis said.
Gaddis expressed his preference for a recreation area over a hotel, restaurant, brewery or residential development. He also disagreed with Bagley’s assessment of the proposed ball courts.
“I think the courts are important,” Gaddis said. “I know the County’s opening the pickleball courts, and it does have outdoor basketball courts, but you can never have enough courts in the community. This community went without a public outdoor basketball court for probably two decades. They’ll be used constantly. We probably need to consider lighting.”
Gaddis agreed with Taylor’s assessment that Hancock Park would face too much stress without a supplemental downtown park. He was also pleased that the proposal would not generate the amount of traffic that other projects might create.
“A development like this will increase the property values of those who live around it, which will in turn create tax revenues and benefits for the City and the County. I think it’s very worthy of pursuing with more discussion,” Gaddis declared.
ROSS SHIRLEY
The discussion then turned to Councilman Ross Shirley, who liked the concept design but showed less enthusiasm for the site itself.
“I think a lot of this is terrific. I think the location is not what I would hope for, to be honest with you,” Shirley said.
Shirley said that some residents he had spoken to had mixed feelings about having ball courts in their back yard.
“It seems like to me it puts us in the Park and Rec business, if you will. And the County is providing that, and of course tax payers are already footing the bill for it,” Shirley said, hinting at an unnecessary duplication of effort.
“I think that it’s certainly worth discussion because there are some good ideas, but I kind of think it should go to a different location,” Shirley concluded.
RYAN REAGIN
Councilman Ryan Reagin asked Martin if she could provide any kind of preliminary cost estimate for the project.
“I know it’s early in the process, but is there any kind of idea on the price tag for something like this?” Reagin asked.
“With the grants that Ariel [Alexander] and I have been able to identify, we could do it for less than $200,000, probably even cheaper than that. But until we actually have the plan, and ask an engineer, we would not be able to give you a firm cost,” Martin replied.
Martin also reiterated that there were no permanent fixtures in the concept design apart from the open-air shelter. She indicated that the pump track could even be dismantled and moved to another location, if desired.
EXPLORING OPTIONS
Martin said that if the council wanted to, she could incorporate the council’s comments into a more formal plan for further review.
“I think the consensus is to look at it, but also to keep in mind the commercial uses of that property and what it could mean in the bigger picture,” Taylor responded.
At that point, Gaddis made one more argument in favor of Martin’s proposal.
“Consensus has never really been there to sell the property and get what we can get, because we wanted some type of say, or some type of control. I just don’t think we’re going to get that … So it makes sense to me to let it benefit our people who live here, to make it a nice place to live,” Gaddis concluded.