Council OKs Spending $25,000 to Study ‘Lakefront Improvements’ at Lakewood Park

Lakewood City Council approved spending $25,000 on a design study for $300,000 in “lakefront improvements” at Lakewood Park.

City officials have said they’d like to focus on improving the western edge of the waterfront at the park. Other details of the proposal may have to wait for the results of a design study.

But here’s a sneak peak: don’t break out your swimming trunks or your fishing pole just yet. The plans aren’t likely to include a public beach or a pier.

There’s about $300,000 in funds available for the project, but it’s only earmarked for the lakefront property at Lakewood Park, and it’s not enough money for any large-scale improvements.

Council approved a request for proposals, and hopes to get submissions returned by July 24.

“The difficulty is that entire portion of Lakewood Park is a landfill,” said council president Brian Powers said. “Very often, what we envision and what is possible on a landfill are two very different things. That’s why we need to pay to do some design work on something like this.”

In 2010, city council adopted the Lakewood Park System Plan to outline a strategy of “continuous and coordinated improvement to our parks and open space.”  

“One of these goals is to enhance the availability of usable space near the waterfront at Lakewood Park,” Powers co-wrote to his colleagues on council last month. “Though significant improvements were made in recent years with the additional of the promenade, the western portion of the lakefront is yet incomplete.”

Originally, the idea was to include elements — such as a pier and development of better water access — but land acquisition and funding have made that idea “not feasible at this time.”

The $300,00 in earmarked bonds for the waterfront improvement (10 years ago) cannot be used for other purposes — or in other parks.