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Working together, the Warsaw Rotary Club, the city and community members are creating a trailhead park to increase recreational opportunities on the city’s west side.
The future Rotary Park will be just east of the intersection of West Center and West Market streets near the Warsaw Public Works Department. Years ago, there was a little diner there, but it’s now just a gravel lot – “kind of an eyesore,” said Warsaw Assistant Planner Justin Taylor. He estimated the lot was about 100 feet by 50 feet.
“It’s a great way for the city and the community to partner together. It really is. We have such a great city park system anyway, but I feel this is a win-win for everybody. Really, what else would you do on this piece of property?” Rotarian Ken Locke said.
Taylor said the trailhead will have a bike repair station that will include an air pump and tools under an awning. There will be either playground equipment or a rock wall, and a pavilion.
Rotary member Woody Zimmerman explained how the club got involved in the project. “We were looking for something for our centennial celebration, which is 2019, and we were talking about different ideas with the city, and then some of our other ideas didn’t pan out. Then this one made sense for us.”
The Warsaw Rotary Club was chartered on June 1, 1919.
Locke added, “We were doing the (bike repair) stations on the (greenway trail) route anyway. We’re going to end up doing six of them when we get done.”
The Rotary started on the stations in 2013, Locke said, with him, Zimmerman and Chris Harrison behind it. “And then we said, ‘Wait a minute. We’ve got the anniversary coming up,’ so we just kept rolling with it and it all came together,” Locke recalled.
Zimmerman said they kicked around ideas for the centennial.
The empty lot at the West Center and Market intersection was then brought up by city officials during discussions. Locke said the city brought it up in discussions because the current empty lot is an eyesore.
“We thought we could really beautify this area and just make it a better entryway into the downtown area,” Zimmerman said.
“Everything kind of lined up all at once, is what happened. Because we were looking, and then this came, and it made sense because this had been an eyesore for a long time,” Locke said.
Based on the renderings, when the project is complete, Locke said, the corner will not look like the same.
Zimmerman said the cost of doing the trailhead park over a couple of years was far less expensive than some other ideas that were floated around, and it’s more manageable.
“It’s something that would be here forever, so it just made sense,” Zimmerman said.
The first phase of the park is to do the front (west end of the lot) with the pavilion, Locke said, with the second phase being the playground equipment (on the east end). “But they’re going to get the whole front of this done, they’ll grass this all in. They’re going to have parking on the street,” Locke said.
He said they’ve got a couple of ideas for playground equipment eventually, but would like to put stuff in the park that isn’t already in Warsaw.
Zimmerman said groundbreaking could happen in the next couple of months.
“The idea would be to have, especially the park and pavilion, in place by 2019. The playground stuff may be a little down the line,” Locke said.
“We’re going to continue to support the park after phase one is completed – continue to support the park and make sure we do get the playground equipment as well,” Zimmerman said.
Warsaw Rotary has committed to raising at least $30,000 for the project. Taylor said Rotary has donated $21,000 to date.
“Obviously, that’s going to go far but it’s not going to create the whole site just yet. We’re going to focus on the pavilion and then some of the site work as far as cleaning up the site and getting some grass down and stuff. And then some of the sidewalks and flatwork we’re going to focus on this year, hopefully,” Taylor said.
“These are still concepts so things could move around a little bit just because of the challenges of the site, there’s grading issues and stuff. So this pavilion could potentially shift locations ... I just want people to keep in mind that stuff could shift around as the design gets refined,” he said.
Locke said they’ve had different fundraisers for it, including a Parrothead Party and a raffle.
They’re also selling paver bricks that will be part of the project so people can honor somebody. Information on the bricks can be found online at https://polarengraving.com/WarsawrotaryClub.
Locke said they’ve received calls from people wanting to honor veterans by purchasing a brick. Bricks come in two different sizes – 4 by 8 inches or 8 by 8 inches.
“It’s a win-win for everybody,” Locke said. “It’s a win-win for Warsaw. It’s a win-win for the Ride+Walk program. They wanted a trailhead in this area, so this worked out perfectly.”
Zimmerman said the trailhead is the missing link for the greenway trail. It will belong to the Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department, but Locke said the Rotary will still have some kind of role in helping with it longterm. “We’ll be a part of that,” he said.
Lewis Salvage is donating a giant gear cog for the trailhead.
“(Mike Lewis) was pretty excited to have something on this side of town. A nicer park on this side of town, because there really isn’t that much on this side of town when you really think about it,” Locke said.
The other “no-brainer” about the project, he said, was that the Center and Market intersection is super busy with a lot of people coming and going who visit Warsaw. “It’s not the best representation of Warsaw, that’s for sure, when you pull up here and look at this (lot), you go, ‘Wow,’” Locke said.
Zimmerman said lots of Zimmer Biomet employees drive through the area, and the nearby Boggs Industrial Park gets used frequently so there’s traffic to and from there.
Early supporters of the Rotary Park have included the Bertsch Family Foundation, the George Lenke family and Lewis.
The previous property owners of the property were George Clemens, Rabb-Kinetico Water Systems Inc. co-owner, and Chandler Williams, Times-Union co-owner, who sold it to the city.
“They donated part of this,” Locke said.
“They reduced their price so they donated part of the land because they, too, wanted to see something happen with this property, something for the better. So we will have their names down as sponsors on the pavilion when it’s built,” Zimmerman said.
Taylor said Clemens and Williams “kind of balked at the assessed value a little bit because it came in a little bit lower than they thought, but – since it was going to a good cause - they decided to sell it for $15,000, which was the assessed value.”
The Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety approved the city buying the property earlier this year from Clemens and Williams. Since Clemens sits on the board, he abstained from voting. The money came out of the Parks Department’s budget.
