Rendering courtesy of the city of Chelsea
Proposed plans for a park at the Chelsea Community Center include a splash pad, a wading pool, a multipurpose athletic field, four pickleball courts, an archery park, an amphitheater and a playground that will feature inclusive equipment for children with disabilities.
The city of Chelsea has big plans for the Community Center that will take shape over the next two to three years, adding a multimillion-dollar recreational park with everything from a splash pad to an archery park.
“I expect it’ll take two to three years to get it all done but we are excited about it, as you can imagine,” Mayor Tony Picklesimer said.
The price tag on the project is around $3.2 million, which will be shared by Chelsea and Shelby County, though the exact agreement hasn’t been worked out yet. The project is part of Shelby County’s 2019 budget, which includes improvements and projects at almost all of the county’s parks.
The park at the Chelsea Community Center will be the most expansive project in the northern part of the county this year. Plans presented during Chelsea’s budget hearings included a splash pad, a wading pool, a multipurpose athletic field, four pickleball courts, an archery park, an amphitheater and a playground that will feature inclusive equipment for children with disabilities.
Picklesimer said the plans for the park come from listening to the residents of Chelsea during his term as mayor and 10 years on the City Council. Archery and pickleball are two sports that have been growing in popularity.
“Pickleball is absolutely on fire. We started with one pickleball session that lasted about two hours a week at the community center, and we now have five two-hour sessions a week in the community center, we have four pickleball courts now at our Highway 51 tennis complex and now we’re adding four more pickleball courts at the community center,” he said.
The archery park will be built on a five-acre property the city bought in July, and Picklesimer said it will include 15 stations and its own parking lot and restrooms.
“Frankly, I feel like archery is an excellent sport for kids to get involved with,” Picklesimer said.
The splash pad has been on citizens’ wish lists for several years, he said. While its exact dimensions haven’t been decided, the mayor said they plan to include a wading pool, which will feature zero entry access and will be around 18 inches at its deepest point. The aquatic facilities will also include a restroom, concession stand and pavilion for party rentals.
The outdoor amphitheater is something Picklesimer is “extremely excited” about because he sees it as a spot for community events, bands, food trucks and school choir performances.
“That amphitheater will have all kinds of uses,” he said.
Picklesimer said the city is intending to start work on the splash pad and wading pool first, to open in early summer 2019, but the project phases have not been finalized.
“I hope to have the bulldozer running before the end of the year,” he said.
Also in Chelsea, County Manager Alex Dudchock said the county, city and Board of Education are finishing work on new restroom facilities at Chelsea Middle School’s athletic fields this fall. The project, though minor, allows Chelsea Middle’s fields to be a venue for athletic tournaments and similar events in the future, he said.
At Veterans Park on Valleydale Road, Shelby County and the city of Hoover are working together on replacing the portable restroom near the sand volleyball courts with a permanent restroom building. Dudchock said the facility will include three unisex stalls, showers and changing stations.
There have been persistent issues with people knocking over the portable toilet at the park, Dudchock said. In addition, adding more stalls will be helpful for the events held at the park throughout the year.
That restroom is expected to start construction before the end of the year and open in spring 2019.
Restrooms have also been an ongoing project throughout Oak Mountain State Park, where Dudchock said their addition has “unbelievably been well received.” The county is finishing a waterless restroom near Lunker Lake and starting another one on Tranquility Road. They also have a new four-unit restroom with showers at the South Trailhead parking lot and a two-unit restroom at the day use field.
These will help meet demand during peak visiting days and major runs, bike races and other events held at the park. It also allows the county to take older restroom facilities out of service to update them.
“Restrooms have been an issue, just not having enough for the demand,” County Development Services Manager Chad Scroggins said.
Dudchock said the waterless restroom design was created by the county’s chief plans examiner, Philip Crunk, and it uses solar power to provide most of the services of a regular bathroom.
Dudchock said the state parks system and other groups have asked for copies of the waterless design to use in other places where there aren’t existing water lines to use for restroom facilities.
“It has the standard fixtures that you would have in your own personal bathroom,” Dudchock said.
Heardmont Park, on Alabama 119, is also on the county’s list of potential park improvement projects in the budget, but no details about that were available at 280 Living’s press time.
