At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I still can’t muster any enthusiasm for the city’s plans to renovate Propst Park.
I’m not alone in that sentiment.
In December 2021, the city of Columbus solicited ideas from citizens on ways to bring more people to the park. Only 83 people responded to the online survey. When the results of the survey were presented in a public meeting at the Trotter Center seven weeks later, just 30 people, many of them city officials, turned out.
Think about that for a moment. The population of Columbus is 24,216. Let’s say that none of the 83 people who participated in the survey attended the meeting to announce results, which is unlikely. That means 193 people — 0.004 percent of the city’s population — responded to the city’s request for ideas.
What that says is that Propst Park barely registers in public opinion.
Against that backdrop of indifference, the city soldiered on by putting together a master plan for park improvements.
If possible, the plan is even more disappointing than the public’s attitude toward the park. It was as if city officials said to themselves, “There is very little interest in the park. Let’s see if we can make it even less interesting.”
If that was the idea, the city succeeded.
As currently configured, Propst Park has 18 baseball and softball fields. The centerpiece of the new and improved Propst Park is…wait for it…four more ball fields, I presume because 18 ball fields just aren’t enough to drive visitors to the park. Ah, but 22 ball fields? That’s a game-changer. I bet traffic will be back up for miles.
Can anything deliver us from such insanity?
Mercifully, yes. Let’s hear it for the high, high cost of ball field construction.
Last week, city engineer Kevin Stafford told the council that a second round of bids for the construction of the new ball fields, along with new lighting for the existing handicap-accessible field, came in at $3,350,350, about $2 million more than the city has available from $400,000 in annual 2 percent tax revenue that is provided to the city for recreation. Columbus CFO James Brigham told the council that the city could borrow the $2 million balance and pay it off by designating $20,000 of the city’s $33,000 monthly 2 percent recreation revenue to pay off the loan, which would mean the loan would be paid off in about 9 or 10 years, depending on the interest rate.
Brigham argued caution, though, noting that the city may need to take out loans for several other needs, including finishing the Terry Brown Amphitheater, potential cost overruns on repairs to the Old Highway 82 Pedestrian Bridge, re-roofing the Municipal Complex, a new fire truck and the inevitable need for another round of city street paving.
Hopefully, the city will pump the brakes on the Propst Park plans and work on a new vision for what the park can be. It’s time to get out of the box, and seek innovative ideas that can inspire a community that clearly has lost interest in the park.
It’s better to wait than proceed with the current plan, which is almost certain to fail. In the meantime, the city can bank a large part of those recreation funds that will allow whatever new costs are associated with a new plan.
Want to really think outside the box?
What if I told you that the biggest problem with Propst Park is that it’s in the wrong place?
Bear with me.
One of the things that the best parks have in common is that they are built around the site’s most interesting feature. That’s true here, too. The Columbus Riverwalk is a good example.
At Propst Park, the most interesting part of the property is Luxapalila Creek, which was mentioned almost as an afterthought in the current master plan.
The Lux is the east border of the park. How do you make the Lux the focal point? You acquire acreage to the east of the Lux. Shift the location and you shift the paradigm.
Water, in all its manifestations, is an attraction and the possibilities associated with water are plentiful.
That’s one idea.
There must be others that don’t involve adding more of what already isn’t working.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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