Nose Creek Park will get underway the week of May 30. For approximately the next five months, visitors to the park will see construction of a new stage and new pavilion area.
During Phase 1 of the project, the existing shelter and washrooms will be torn down to make way for a new pavilion, which will include new washrooms, a concession area and covered picnic area.
“It will be fairly the same in terms of size to what’s there now. If you’re looking down at it from the top, it will look like a square doughnut,” said Scott Fediow, parks development technician with the City of Airdrie. “The centre will be open and there will be two covered L-shaped areas connected with an arbour. We’ll have a shaded area under the L-shaped areas, sun and shade under the arbours and that open area will be open for complete sun.
“We wanted to add some variety, some architectural flare to it, and something a little bit different and unique.”
The cost to build the new pavilion is approximately $500,000, while new washrooms will be added in the northeast area of the park for $460,000.
Once Phase 1 is complete, work will begin on the new, covered stage. The new stage will be located to the east of the existing stage.
“It will be only slightly larger than the current stage, but it is covered. That’s the main feature – that it’s going to be covered,” Fediow said. “It will have a few other features like a concrete centre stage with a boardwalk that wraps around the whole stage and then out over to the pond.”
Phase 2 will include building the new boardwalk along the pond, which will be larger than the existing boardwalk and will also be lowered to allow easy access to the pond for skating in the winter and fishing in the summer months.
The cost to complete the new stage is $1 million, the bulk of the overall budget. The cost to complete the boardwalk, add additional picnic tables throughout the park and redo some landscaping is $510,000.
Funding for the project was approved by City council in the 2016 Operating Budget in Dec. 2015.
The current renovation is the largest overhaul of the popular public facility since Nose Creek Park opened in September 1994, including the current shelter and the stage.
According to Fediow, considerable consultation with the public and user groups was conducted before the final design was decided upon, including a number of open houses. After asking what residents would like to see in the park redesign, three concept drawings were presented to the public, user groups and internal parks staff.
“From that we’ve come up with the design we now have. To close the loop, we’ve created some drawings and what not and went back for a third time to see if we hit the mark for what the user groups and public were wanting,” he said. “So far, we’ve been told we’re hitting the mark.”
Users of the playground at the park will still be able to access it throughout the construction. Work on the park renovation is expected to be completed by November.
