Meetings this week on new featuresBY PAUL C. CURTIS TGI Staff Writer When Tim Bynum and 7,000 of his closest friends got together and built Kamalani Playground just over six years ago, Bynum realized its Lydgate Park home in Wailua
Meetings this week on new featuresBY PAUL C. CURTIS
TGI Staff Writer
When Tim Bynum and 7,000 of his closest friends got
together and built Kamalani Playground just over six years ago, Bynum realized
its Lydgate Park home in Wailua was a regional super-park waiting to
happen.
Guess what? They’re ba-a-ck.
And even though the
community-built portion of an even more ambitious upgrade to Lydgate Park
(including soccer and other sports fields and a bicycle and pedestrian path
circling the entire acreage) is 11 months away, there is more community input
to receive and information to share.
Fishermen and other shoreline users
have expressed concern about their ocean access after next year’s Lydgate
expansion and improvements. A meeting for them is scheduled for Wednesday at
5:30 p.m. in the park’s main pavilion.
Nationally known consultants are
soliciting input from park users from ages 5 and up about the final design of a
bridge/gathering area/rest spot to be located near the Wailua Golf Course end
of the expanded park. They want to share plans with the community at a
family-style meeting Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at the Holiday Inn SunSpree
Resort-Kaua’i.
For Bynum and others, the expansion of the park to include
the sports fields, huge family camping area, the interactive, 2.5-mile
pedestrian and bike path circling and weaving its way through the park, and
other features is more than just the dream-in-progress of those who wish to put
a long-lasting stamp on one of the county’s most-used outdoor areas.
It is
a way — organizers hope once and for all — to put the park in permanent
recreational usage that will officially signal the end of proposed resort uses
for the area that is the gateway to the island’s most significant historical
areas of Wailua.
The community-built portion of the project involves a
bridge and decks near the golf course end of the park, some of which was
recently given to the county by the state, Bynum explained.
But this is no
ordinary bridge over an area that is sometimes a stream. It is being designed
by Kaua’i keiki and is shaping up to be a mini-Kamalani, with a level below the
top of the bridge devoted to tunnels and a maze, observation pavilion and
platform and wheelchair access, according to Bynum.
This morning, architect
Robert S. Leathers of Ithaca, N.Y. was joined by several others at the park for
a walk-around. On Wednesday and Thursday, Leathers goes back to school to
solicit additional input from Kapa’a Middle School drafting students and
others, and younger children at King Kaumuali’i Elementary School, the closest
public school to Lydgate.
Planning is already well underway for the bicycle
path route and the entire park acreage is being surveyed, said Bynum, who with
Troy Wai’ale’ale form the general coordinators of Kamalani 2001.
Merl
Grimes, of MDG Inc., is also on the island. His firm specializes in developing
trails and parks.
There are volunteer positions for virtually anyone
interested in helping in any way, and not just those folks who are handy with a
hammer and other tools. Volunteers are needed to help organize, cook,
entertain, provide childcare, donate building materials, lend tools or provide
cash to the endeavor.
Some $1.3 million has been raised for the project so
far, and Bynum said yesterday that another $1 million is needed.
Staff
Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext.
224).
