By Thia James

Kinsmen Park to undergo upgrades

May 27, 2015 | 6:42 AM

Kinsmen Park will undergo a host of changes this year, all expected to be finished by Canada Day.

Some of the park’s infrastructure will be replaced, repaired or upgraded, as the City of Prince Albert readies its centrally located park for the summer festivities.

“Kinsmen Park is probably our most used park. That’s what it’s about,” Mayor Greg Dionne said. “As you know, it used to host the Taste of Prince Albert, the (Borealis) music festival is going to be there, Canada Day. Citizens’ picnic days. On Sunday, you go by there, you can’t get a picnic spot.”

The City is starting to address some of the problems identified by residents using the park, Dionne said.

“And our goal is to get this all done by July 1st because that’s when our celebrations start. We have that, we have the festivals in the park, we have lots of things going on.”

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The only feature of the park that may not be addressed this year is the network of walking paths.

“You know, I’d like to see them done this year, but I don’t know if we can because we have to get public works in there because we have lots of areas where water is standing, so we got to haul dirt in and bring the level of certain areas of the park up,” Dionne said.

This work is in the City’s budget. Over the next couple of years, Dionne said residents will see a lot of improvements in Kinsmen Park.

In 2015, council approved $50,000 for the first phase of the park’s restoration, community services director Jody Boulet explained.

These include improvements to the picnic shelters, the paddling pool building, as well. These, the restoration of the amphitheatre and revisiting some of the park’s “furniture” are high on the priority list.

Items such as the fire and barbecue pits have experienced deterioration that affected their safety, Boulet said. The City has removed some that have deteriorated to this point, but the community services department will be keeping an inventory for future replacements. As well, they will gauge the demand for the use of the fire and barbecue pits around the park.

Other upgrades are being phased themselves, with each step taking place over a longer period of time.

The paddling pools are still safe to use, but are dated. Boulet said the City’s finding that the new spray parks are up-to-date and efficient.

“We have had some interest from some local organizations to come on board us sponsor a project of that nature, so we’re working through some of those details as well.”

The City also plans to complete a ground survey of the park in an effort to address drainage issues within the park. This step is necessary before the City works to fix the drainage issues, then moves on to fix some of the trails.

“Some of those trails run through some low areas in the park and what we don’t want to do is restore those trails only to have them experience issues where they’re either under water or affected by water that accumulate in the park if the drainage isn’t fixed,” Boulet said.

The department will make a funding request for this work for the project’s second phase in the 2016 budget cycle.

The department plans to bring a report forward in the next cycle of council.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames