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One of Springfield’s oldest parks is getting some touch ups. The city broke ground Tuesday at Fassnight Park on a Waterway/Stormwater Improvement Project. KSMU’s Adam Murphy reports.
Springfield residents and visitors have heard Fassnight Creek flowing through the park of the same name for almost 100 years. And now, the park and its waterways will be restored through collaboration between the city’s stormwater management and the Springfield-Greene County Parks Board. Greene County administrator Tim Smith says this work will bring improvements to both the waterways and the historic park.
“It’ll give folks a great place to enjoy, to relate to, it provides safety and protection from flooding, it provides water quality; it’s just the perfect thing to do...The marriage between parks and stormwater waterway management is perfect…that’s what this community is all about, we work together, and we get more done,” said Smith
The restoration of the waterways will help control flooding in the neighborhood areas and on the streets intersecting the creek including Grant and Campbell. Jodie Adams is the director of the Springfield-Greene County Parks Board.
“One of the fathers of our National Recreation and Park Association said ‘just make sure you leave it better than you found it’. We are trying to leave this better than we found it. This waterway is over 80 to almost 100 years old, and that’s what we’re going to do here,” said Adams.
Some of the major improvements include reconstructing and raising the bridges on Grant and Campbell. A Fassnight Creek Greenway Trail extension will run under these bridges and through the entire park. Adams said the goal is to continue the trail all the way to Phelps Grove Park.
The $5 million dollar improvement project is funded by the 2006 county-wide Parks Sales Tax and other grants. It is expected to be completed next summer.
This is the first in a series of improvement projects to reconstruct several of Springfield’s older parks and restore waterways. Upcoming improvement projects include Sequiota, Doling, and Nathaniel Greene/Close Memorial parks, and Dickerson Park Zoo and Jordan Creek.
For KSMU News, I’m Adam Murphy.