The city of Bryan now is working in a program that will entail a serious overhaul of its parks around the city. At the parks and recreation meeting Tuesday night, Sue Haswell Park was the current focus of the remodeling plan.
According to David Schmitz, division manager of the Bryan parks and recreation department, the renovated Sue Haswell Park “will be aimed at not only becoming a centerpiece for Bryan, but to also draw in people from the surrounding communities and towns.”
The park will have two baseball fields, a basketball court and a tennis court. Pavilions will be upgraded along with the addition of “The Path of Presidents” that will be lined with kiosks, each featuring three reliefs in brass of the head of every president from Washington through Clinton, along with a famous quote.
A portion of the park will be dedicated by the American Cancer Society to cancer survivors and will contain benches and a lit walkway.
This 19-acre park, located at the intersection of William Jennings Bryan Parkway and Coulter Street, will complete its renovation early next year.
The completed remodeling of the Schulman Palace Theater in downtown Bryan also was on the agenda. Since the roof and two walls of the theater collapsed in May of 1986, the Palace has not been used much, but is now being scheduled for groups such as improvisational comedy crew Freudian Slip and musician Bob French.
Also announced was that there will be a holiday lighting contest called the “Parade of Lights,” that will award cash prizes to those winning homes or businesses in Bryan and College Station.
At the College Station Parks and Recreation meeting on Tuesday, Oct 9, two new parks were approved. These small neighborhood parks will be located in the subdivisions of Castlegate Park and Westfield. The Westfield park will be built adjacent to where a future elementary school will be constructed and could be built as a joint operation between the Parks and Recreation Department and the College Station Independent School District.
Another focus of this meeting was to expand the Greenways system in College Station which will contain an extensive trail system. This would fall under the city’s seventh strategy of the Vision Statement #4 program.
The Vision Statements are the goals that the city is striving to achieve in order to improve the town. Also included in Vision Statement #4, that is aimed mainly at the Parks and Recreation Department, is improving park maintenance, providing more services for seniors and creating a more efficient method of conducting business with other divisions of the city government.