Money ‘Parks’ Two Parks

If there’s one place that needs a facelift, it is the proposed site of the Northbridge Park just on the West Ashley side of the Cosgrove Bridge. But that facelift, along with one for a proposed park in the Ashleyville Neighborhood, may have to wait an extra year thanks to, according to some officials, design mistakes on the part of the City of Charleston.
Last week, at the the Northbridge site, men berated those who parked in the way of the one, good path leading under the bridge where crabbing and fishing is the best. The parking area, such as it was at the bottom of a steep incline, is pitted with tire-eating mudholes and exposed, jagged asphalt.
Originally, the City of Charleston budgeted almost $580,000 to turn the outcropping into a parkable, walkable, fishable park for fishermen and paddlers  to enjoy and soak up the beauty of the Ashley River.
But City Councilman Aubrey Alexander, who represents a big chunk of West Ashley, found out recently that the project is now on the backburner because it had hit a funding shortfall of close to $480,000.
Alexander said the need for the additional money, which nearly doubled the cost, was the result of state Department of Transportation requirements.
Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., said the DOT required an additional bulkhead for the park not included in the original scheme.  He said the new bulkhead added “substantially” to the initial projected cost.
Another Park that’s Stalled
Down the road and around the corner in Ashleyville located behind what had been an “adult entertainment” shop for years and now a gas station, the city has planned for a water-access park at the terminus of the West Ashley Bike Path parallel to Chickadee Lane.
But Alexander found out, that project was also slowing because of similar funding issues. Originally estimated to cost $250,000, design changes there have increased the cost an additional $388,000.
Riley said the city was not initially aware that the Ashleyville pier, which rests on the remnants of a former light rail bridge, had special state requirements and ownership issues. The pier created hoops for the city to jump through with the federal Army Corps of Engineers, the state Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM), and the Lowcountry Open Land Trust, he said.
But the city didn’t do its “due diligence” in the design phase, according to Elizabeth Hagood, the trust’s executive director. If it had, she said, it would have discovered the trust held the land in a conservation easement and has a big say in what is built  — or not built — on that spot.
The trust has been charged via participating landowners to keep so-called “gateway” vistas along the Ashley River as pristine and as unencumbered as possible, said Hagood, who once chaired OCRM’s parent agency, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).
Hagood said if the city had approached the trust first, it would have been able to help the city design a more pleasing facility, which would have saved upward of a year. As it is, the new agreed-upon design is basically the one the city proposed. The difference is it is shorter, thinner, has a smaller crabbing platform and is punctuated with less visually obtrusive guiderails.
When completed, the pier will have a stunning vista overlooking the Ashley River and some of the most beautiful views of the Citadel and much of downtown. It will be named in honor of Leonard Higgins, a community activist and the former principal of St. Johns High School.
On Friday, Riley reasserted his support for both projects, vowing to find the additional funding needed. He defended the city’s permitting efforts, saying that extra costs are always uncovered during the design phase, and he hoped to begin work on the two parks next year.
Riley added the snafus don’t result in much of a delay and that the result, “beautiful water access for everyone to enjoy,” was assured.  As an example, he pointed to a smaller urban Charlotte Street Park on the peninsula that took 10 years to complete.
Alexander said he and a few of his West Ashley colleagues on Council were scheduled to meet soon with the mayor to make sure that more of what is good for the peninsula finds its way to West Ashley.
Back at the Northbridge park, Wisconsinite Kevin Walsh helped strap David Ball’s two-man kayak to the roof of a Subaru.
Ball, a somewhat retired nurse in the reserves, lives on a small lake in the Sandhurst neighborhood, but prefers to put-in at Northbridge. He thinks any additional work at the Ashley River location would be well worth it.
Tugging on a nylon cord and tying it into a half-hitch knot, Ball said the proof that water-access parks are good things has already been provided, most recently in Mount Pleasant under the Arthur Ravenel Bridge and in the I’On neighborhood.
“People have to realize that if we create parks and things of beauty and utility, people will appreciate them. They will get used and help increase the value of West Ashley,” said Ball.