Master plan for Jacobs Creek Park in Bullskin Township to be submitted for state approval
Mark Hofmann | Herald-Standard
Looking over the master site plan for the Jacobs Creek Park in Bullskin Township are (from left) Mary Kaufman, director of the Mount Pleasant Public Library, Richard P. Rauso, the landscape architect for the proposed project, and Annie Quinn, the executive director of the Jacobs Creek Watershed Association.
Mark Hofmann | Herald-Standard
The master site plan for Jacobs Creek Park in Bullskin Township includes proposed features like a walking trail around the lake and through the park, various themed gardens, new pavilions and solar lighting.
The final public meeting to review the master plan for a Fayette County park was held this week with committee organizers ready to enhance the park with multiple features including a much-desired trail in the park.
For three years, Annie Quinn, the executive director of the Jacobs Creek Watershed Association, said she has heard from people arriving for programs at the Jacobs Creek Park in Bullskin Township that they wanted to see a walking trail around the park’s lake.
“People want to see this park’s real potential,” Quinn said.
The frequent requests caused her and Sue Martin, a community development specialist with Fayette County, to seek funding to start a committee and come up with a master plan through a Community Conservation Partnership Program (C2P2) grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) last fall.
From there, they formed the Jacobs Creek Park Study Committee, a 25-person committee made up of representatives from churches, schools, libraries, nearby landowners and local and county leaders. The group strove to maintain transparency by holding three meetings to get public input, though only one was required.
“People know this park, and they know what they wanted,” Quinn said, adding that the committee was able to determine four categories to be addressed with the park: security, maintenance, solitude and use. “This master plan address all four of those.”
Quinn said they also want to promote historic aspects of the park, particularly with a three-tiered playground that will be known as the Great Swamp Playground, named after what one of Gen. Edward Braddock’s men called Jacobs Creek on Braddock’s Trail.
“There’s beautiful, wonderful history here, and we want to make that history alive at the park,” Quinn said.
The walking trail is planned to be 2 ¼ miles long to go around the entire lake and over the lake in parts with a floating dock section and through the park as well.
“I really love the idea of a walking trail around the park,” said Mary Kaufman, the director of the Mount Pleasant Free Public Library and a member of the park study committee.
Kaufman said she’s happy the master plan is including safety issues like solar lighting to be installed at the park and tree conservation and landscaping.
“There are a couple of themes with the gardens,” said Richard Rauso, the landscape architect for the project.
A botanical garden, a spring bulb lawn, a riparian garden and a bird and butterfly garden are some of the planned features that will help fill the need of the solitude category as that section plans to be out of the way of the other features planned for the park.
Those features include parking lot improvements with a new entrance and entry gate, small and large picnic pavilions, security camera system, site furniture, meadow seeding, a restroom, boardwalks, a bocce court, solar parking lights, a maintenance building, a spring house, an accessible fishing dock, a fern glade, a dog park and dog pavilions, a wedding gazebo, amphitheater, basketball and volleyball courts and a canoe/kayak rental building.
“No other Fayette County park has approached this,” Quinn said, but added that other community leaders have seen what’s planned with Jacobs Creek Park and may try to do the same.
Quinn said those features are expected to be implemented in five phases of the project with construction of a section of the walking trail taking part at each phase.
She said the next step will be to take the plan to the county for approval, then to the state for approval and, when approved, apply for construction grants in 2019.
While no solid timetable has been establishes for the master plan or cost released by organizers until the county commissioners approve the plan, Quinn said she believes it can be done within five to 10 years.