FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - There are three main focal points officials are focusing on when it comes to updating Fort Wayne’s downtown riverfront - nature, recreation and development.
City officials have some ideas for the area that it hopes will bring a balance between those three concepts, which were highlighted Tuesday during a city-led riverwalk along the St. Marys River.
About 45 people attended Tuesday’s walk, which was split into three groups. The walk, the city’s community development spokeswoman Mary Tyndall said, was to get input on ideas already put forward for adding to and improving the area, and to find out what area residents envision.
“We wanted to get people’s feedback on those concepts,” Tyndall told The Journal Gazette (https://bit.ly/1yMBl5Y ). “We wanted to hear about the things they want to add, take out or rearrange.”
The city’s riverfront consultants, SWA Group, an urban design firm with offices in California and Texas, have already presented a variety of options for three key areas of the riverfront - Lawton Park, Bloomingdale and Guldlin parks, and a riverfront promenade.
“It’s all very conceptual,” Tyndall said.
Some of the concepts SWA Group has for Lawton Park include a natural riverwalk, an adventure playground for children, a porch swing grove and a Ferris wheel.
Other ideas - offered by residents Tuesday - included a high ropes course, zip lines and a community garden.
“We’re looking at the Lawton Park area to be a really active area,” Tyndall said. “We definitely want to step it up to be more interactive and active.”
The city is also looking to beautify areas along the river, including the Third Street pump station, which is part of Fort Wayne’s combined sewer system servicing the older third of the city and experiencing up to 70 overflows a year.
“We’re trying to see what we can do with it to make it a little less obnoxious, a little less unsightly,” said program manager Mary Jane Slaton, who led one of Tuesday’s walks.
Slaton said some of the ideas for that space included using the building as an “urban art canvas” and allowing residents to “use it for artistic graffiti.”
There are also ideas to place some porch swings on top of the pump station.
“There are lots of ideas of what to do with it, but it’s not going away,” Slaton said.
Even though rain canceled a riverwalk originally scheduled for Monday and cut short Tuesday’s walk, residents who participated had some ideas and concerns of their own.
To Fort Wayne resident Will Wendling, maintaining public access to the Rivergreenway is important, especially if residential developments become part of the plan for the riverfront.
“To me, it’d be important if they did that to have public access to the area uninterrupted,” he said.
That way, Wendling said, any potential residents would still have a view of the river while still allowing people to use the existing trails.
“I don’t think it’s conflicting either,” he said. “People living there could be sitting on their patios, and I’d rather sit here and see people doing activities, rather than look at an empty river.”
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Information from: The Journal Gazette, https://www.journalgazette.net
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