Parks board updated on Firemen’s Park projects

The city is awaiting approval from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to move forward with multiple projects within Firemen’s Park. The city is planning multiple improvement projects which include a dog park, new playground equipment with ADA-accessible access and trails.

The Graham Parks Department Board of Directors met Tuesday, Dec. 12 and received an update on Firemen’s Park projects from Jacob & Martin Project Manager Tristan King.

The new playground equipment at Firemen’s Park, which is completed, is awaiting handicap parking, lights, sidewalks and more before the city has an official opening.

“Texas Parks and Wildlife has that under review,” King said. “As soon as they give us the go ahead, which I would hope that it would be before the end of the year but not guaranteeing that, (but) as soon as that gets done and they give us their notice to proceed then the city can issue a notice to proceed and they can get started on that work.”

Board member Ian Woosley raised concerns about children playing on the equipment while workers were around the playground.

“As far as the construction goes, they shouldn’t have to get into the playground equipment area at all. But we can ask them to put up a security fence while they are working out there so… while there are people out there playing that they’re not injured by it,” King said.

The large and small dog parks that are planned to be included at Firemen’s Park are also held up with TPWD for review.

“(Texas) Parks and Wildlife has that one under (review) and it will go through the exact same process,” King said. “Timeline for both of those (the dog park and playground additions) I would expect to be done, if they give us an approval before the end of the year and we can give the contractors approval before the end of the year, I’d say probably March is when we will be done.”

King said the playground was able to be completed faster due to being handled without a bid process.
“We didn’t bid out the playgrounds, we just bought it so we didn’t have to go through the procurement process,” he said. “Ideally, everything was going to line up at the same time, but since we just bought the playground equipment and had it installed it doesn’t fall in the same timeline.”

The board tentatively Saturday, Jan. 6 at 10 a.m. for the ribbon cutting and grand opening of the new playground equipment at the park. The board had originally held off on holding a ceremony until all aspects of the playground, including parking access, were completed.

One portion of the park improvements was the addition of trails using an obtained state TPWD grant.
An archaeological survey has been completed for the trails project which may still have hiccups, according to King.

“They are finishing up their research right now and they found a couple of sites that were questionable. I believe it has to do with the water plant out there. They are going to recommend to the Texas Historical Commission that they are not an issue… basically, the trails are not going to affect that,” he said. “If Texas Historical Commission buys off on that, then we can go ahead and proceed with finishing that up and sending it to (Texas) Parks and Wildlife for approval. If they do say that it is a problem, then it will have to (have) more field work, more research and stuff like that.”