Shown here is a design for the kitchen addition at Cook Park that was approved by the Athens City Council Tuesday night.

Shown here is a design for the kitchen addition at Cook Park that was approved by the Athens City Council Tuesday night.

J.L. Cook Memorial Park is set to see some changes in the near future after Tuesday’s Athens City Council meeting.

It was then that the council members approved $831,100.60 for a variety of changes and additions to the park located on Cook Drive in Athens. This was a project that was discussed two years earlier, but was delayed due to a suspect in a car chase crashing into the park’s playground and then the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During last week’s city council study session, Parks and Recreation Director Austin Fesmire outlined the planned upgrades and additions to the park — including site improvements, the addition of a kitchen and fixes to other portions of the park.

The site improvement, Fesmire explained, will cost $456,295.20 and will include rubber mulch addition and increased drainage, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to the parking lot and playground, corrections for drainage at the pavilion and concrete removal from the playground.

The rubber mulch, he noted, has been a part of the budget and planned by the council.

“It’s one of the most expensive things you can buy right now,” Fesmire noted about the rubber mulch. He explained that it goes through a special heating process and isn’t the typical mulch bought at stores.

The second item Fesmire brought before the council was the addition of a kitchen in the park’s pavilion, which would cost $304,196.80 and would closely resemble the one at Athens Regional Park.

“We would need to add a couple more columns and an addition to the roof” to accommodate the kitchen, Fesmire added.

He pointed out that the kitchen has not been budgeted by the city council.

“This would come from the capital fund,” Fesmire said. “We studied the best way to do this and that’s the best way.”

While the cost was more than expected, several council members noted the importance of adding the kitchen.

“That kitchen is way more expensive than I anticipated it being, but it’s very important,” Mayor Bo Perkinson said. “I continue to be amazed at the cost of things, but it will be very well utilized in the future.”

“With all the things we’ve been spending money on, I would be very sad — maybe an ‘M’ instead of an ‘S’ on that — if we don’t do the kitchen,” Council Member Frances Witt McMahan noted. “Fifteen to 20 years from now, that’s going to be more appreciated than it is now. If we have that in the capital budget, I’d like to do that.”

Along with those two base projects, Fesmire also brought several options before the council. Two were dismissed out of hand due to price and the potential to do them in other ways, but three others were accepted by the council.

Alternate #1 that Fesmire brought before the council will cost $13,434 and will include the “removal of un-level concrete around the monuments that is a trip hazard.” Fesmire noted that the concrete is structurally sound, but “right now if you were to walk over there and you’re not looking, it’s a tripping hazard because we’ve got some settling.”

Alternate #2 will cost $14,400 and “includes a pre-cast concrete cap for the wall around the basketball court. It was our desire to retain the last piece of the school building and it was determined that this cap was the best way to repair the top.”

The final approved alternate will cost $4,750 and is a “poured-in-place bench on the west side of the basketball court wall.” Fesmire noted that this will be an effective way to deal with exposed brick on the wall.

“If you’re playing ball, it gives you a place to sit and it covers that (exposed area) entirely,” he said.

With the addition of the kitchen, Fesmire said this is more than was ever planned to be done at Cook Park.

“This exceeds what the original master plan had,” he said.

“It’s a very expensive project, but I think it’s a vital project,” Council Member Jordan Curtis noted.

The activity at the park will justify the cost, Witt McMahan added.

“If it’s not done now, it won’t get done — it’ll keep getting kicked down the road,” she said. “People use that park, they really use that park.”

During Tuesday night’s meeting, the council members unanimously approved the projects as part of their consent agenda. The work will be done by Wilson Construction of Athens.

Email: dewey.morgan@dailypostathenian.com

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