BREMERTON — The City of Bremerton has big plans to renovate the Manette Playfield.
The public can learn all about the proposed plans, and offer some opinions, at the meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 26, at the Bremerton Senior Center, 1140 Nipsic Ave.
“It’s basically a complete park overhaul,” said Colette Berna with the Parks and Recreation department. “The park has not seen any capital investment in some time. They playground is over 20 years old.”
Berna said that some parts of the playground equipment needed replacing, but they were so old, the manufacturer no longer makes them, so they needed to be removed and the area roped off.
Part of the renovation plans include completely replacing the playground equipment. They also include making the park ADA compliant, replacing one of the two tennis courts with a multi-sports court, replacing the bathroom, creating a sheltered picnic area, adding walking paths between the features of the park and improving drainage on the fields. The playground equipment will be separated into two sections: one for children under 5 years old and one for children ages 5 to 12.
David Hedger, a parks commissioner and a member of the Manette Neighborhood Coalition, said, “The demographics of the neighborhood have changed, to the point where instead of being older — what some people have called ‘seasoned’ — folks, we have a lot of young families moving in, a lot more kids taking advantage of the park.
“Redeveloping the park would allow for more successful use of the park by the people that are using it.”
The Manette Neighborhood Coalition has pledged $75,000 to the renovation, and they are currently working to raise the funds for that. Hedger said they’ve partnered with the Kitsap Community Foundation to raise money through a pass-through fund, and all donations are tax deductible.
“I think the response has been overwhelmingly positive and just been very enthusiastic,” Hedger said.
The city is also in the process for applying for three grants to fully fund the renovation, said Berna. Two are state grants through the Recreation and Conservation office, which would total $750,000. The third is a National Parks and Recreation grant; the city is asking for $357,000 from that. The city will learn if they received the state grants in October, and will hear about the national grant around June 30, Berna said.
“If we received all the grants, we would start engineering and designing the park probably this fall,” Berna said. “We could start construction as early as next summer if we receive all three grants. That would be the earliest.”
If construction is started in summer 2017, Berna said the park would be ready for use the following summer.
Plans to renovate the park date back to 2012, when Berna said the city started revising their Open Space Plan.
“Manette Playfield was at the top of the list as a high priority to be renovated, mainly because it just hasn’t had a capital investment for some time,” Berna said. “The playground is falling apart, the tennis courts are cracked, the restroom is substandard, nothing is ADA compliant.”
The meeting April 26 will be the third public meeting regarding this renovation. There, the city will review the updated plan based on community feedback, and discuss the timeline of the renovation, as well as talk about the name of the park.
“Right now, it’s called Manette Playfield,” Berna said, “and it’s not inclusive of all the other amenities that are going to be on the park. We want to get (public) input on what they want their name to be.”
Hedger added that they want the park to appeal not only to residents of the Manette neighborhood, but to Bremerton at large.
To learn more about the Manette Playfield Renovation meeting, visit bit.ly/1YLrm9w. To donate to the Manette Park Improvement Project, visit kcf.smalldognet.com/erp/donate and scroll down to Pass-Through Funds.
