City proposes downtown park concept for outdoor events

The Guthrie city council discussed several projects on Tuesday evening inside City Hall. They’re hopeful to address two major concerns as soon as possible while beginning discussions on perhaps reshaping a portion of the downtown area.

First, the two major items the City is facing happens to be near the same downtown intersection – Harrison Ave. and Wentz St.

As Guthrie News Page first reported last month, the Harrison Ave. Bridge, which is underneath Harrison Ave. and serves no purpose for motorists, consist of a steel beam superstructure with steel pier beams has been found to have a significant section loss to a number of the steel beams. Related article: Weight limit reduced for downtown road due to bridge inspection

In an engineer’s estimate of probable cost, the temporary solution is quoted at $543,537 for a 15-year fix. The second quote for a permanent fix is estimated at $695,040.28.

The next item of discussion involved the storm water drainage at Harrison and Wentz that serves the watershed as far east as the Masonic Temple along both sides of Harrison and Oklahoma Avenues.

Despite repairs along the path throughout the last several years by the City’s street department, funding has not been available for the engineer’s recommended repairs that were brought forth to the council in 2005 and 2012.

This portion of drainage is the bottom end of a fairly large section of the city’s central Storm Water Drainage Basin. Once the storm water reaches Wentz St. it then travels south down the middle of the street, under Jelsma Stadium, under the fire station and dumps out in Snake Creek, behind where the Dolese Concrete Plant was located.

However, the intersection is flood prone with heavy rains and often floods a nearby building. 

Myers Engineer list three alternative estimates: $443,326 for a detention pond, $1,616,614.50 for a complete replacement and $622,015 for an upgrade storm sewer in the vicinity of the project.

Downtown park outside of Jelsma Stadium?

City officials are considering a concept of adding a downtown park area, which would include an outdoor stage area and road improvements for business parking.

With several illustrations of the proposed project, City Manager Leroy Alsup showed plans of removing a downtown building (old Ford dealership and currently used as a patrol car outfit) and adding a green space look, which would allow for a permanent outdoor place to host events such as Red Brick Nights, 89er’s and tailgate parties for high school football games. For the residents who live downtown, this could be a great way to be involved in different events, without having to travel that far. If you live in Cleveland and like the idea of being close to all the action, why not have a look at downtown Cleveland apartments to see if this is somewhere you would like to move to.

City Manager Leroy Alsup says the discussion item is the first of a series of discussions with nothing in stone at the present time. “This is a draft concept that we are talking about. There are still a lot of details to work out.”

According to Alsup, the City would entertain buying the downtown building, located on the southeast corner of Wentz and Harrison, along with the parking lot across the street to the west, which is currently being used as a used car lot. If agreed upon a sale of the property, the City would demolish the building, add an underneath detention pond facility to collect storm water and add a green space on top of the property.

With the parking lot and the City’s current parking lot to the north, the same concept of a green space would be added.

“We have visited with Mr. (Bob) Powell, no deals have been arranged, but he seemed receptive to maybe selling that property to the City along with the parking lot across the street,” Alsup said.

In addition, Alsup said if the underground bridge was removed, a retaining wall would be needed to help support Jelsma Stadium’s iconic and historic 30-foot sandstone wall. The city manager suggested a performance stage area could be built up against the stadium’s sandstone wall and serve crowds both inside and outside of the stadium.

However, Guthrie Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Mike Simpson was adamant about protecting the sandstone wall.

“We do not want to change the inside of the stadium. We don’t want to modify the wall on the inside. It’s historic, it’s significant, it’s been recognized nationally, it’s a landmark for our school district and community,” Simpson said.

The superintendent continued by adding the school district is wanting to work with the City on the remediation on the bridge and to reach a solution quickly.

Along with the outdoor park, two turnabouts would be utilized along Harrison Ave. to allow customer parking in front of businesses during events.

Alsup said the entire project would reflect and match Guthrie’s Victorian look with red bricks and sandstone.

“I think this is a fix to several problems that we are facing right now, especially drainage,” Vice Mayor Ed Wood said. “The bridge is the main thing we have to take care of immediately.”

The cost of the outdoor project has not been estimated in the early going process, but Alsup says this project at least needs to be looked at.

“It may reach the point that this is not a project that the city council is ready to fund, but at least we need to talk about it.”

Councilmember Jeff Taylor said, “I think it’s a great idea.”

Councilmember Jim Case echoed by saying, “It’s an awesome idea. I love the concept.”

Councilman Jason Smedley also appeared to be on board. “I love the concept and I’m open to the idea of closing Wentz St. between Harrison and Oklahoma.”

However, not everyone was excited about the project, especially the removing of a downtown building.

“This idea is terrible,” downtown business owner James Long said in a social media comment on Guthrie News Page’s Facebook page.

“The city council feels it is ok to tear down a building that was built-in 1925. Have we not learned our lesson from tearing down other historical buildings? This is all wrong, very wrong.”

The council is expected to continue conversations on the proposed project at their annual council retreat on Aug. 3.