The West U City Council will decide Monday night whether or not to purchase three residential lots on Mercer Avenue for a new city park.
The city council will consider purchasing 6522 Mercer, 6528 Mercer and 6532 Mercer on Monday night.
The city council will consider purchasing 6522 Mercer, 6528 Mercer and 6532 Mercer. 6522 Mercer is owned by Erik and Maria Herbst and 6528 Mercer and 6532 Mercer are owned by Roger and Ann Martin.
The three properties are located on Mercer between Pittsburg Street and Carnegie Street. Two of the lots back up to Poor Farm Ditch. The square footage of all three lots is about 28,000 square feet.
City Manager Michael Ross told InstantNewsWestU.com that the properties could be used as a “stand alone park.”
“This could stand alone if that was the decision for the future,” he said.
The city has not released the cost for all three lots. Ross said that if council approves the purchase of the lots, the city will adopt a reimbursement resolution and their hope is to pay for it through charitable donations and from the sale of city-owned real-estate.
Council’s vote on whether or not to approve the purchase of the properties comes just two weeks after the council met behind closed doors to discuss parkland acquisition.
In March of 2012 council directed a parkland acquisition committee, a subcommittee of the city’s parks board, to continue to look for properties that could someday become a park.
Parks Chair John Wilkinson told the council last year that the goal is to have a park within walking distance of all West U residents in all quadrants of the city.
West U currently has 11 parks, totaling 12.6 acres. All of the parks are located on corner lots.
Park curfew for all city parks is 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
$1,500,000?
Get it at the right price and I’m all in favor. Since one of the sellers is a real estate agent, perhaps he could represent the buyer and sellers and donate his fee. That would help the city by nearly $100,000!
Would like to see it become a cat park. We already have a dog park and the animals are getting quite jealous of one another.
Spend over $1,000,000 for three lots to put in a park? What kind of park? A strip of grass with some swings? It’s stupid waste of money plus reduces our future tax base.
If Ross wants charitable contributions to buy it, let a charitable buyer come forth and buy it and then donate it to the city.
This sounds like another scheme being orchestrated by Ross and Fry to line the pockets of some friends. Let’s have some disclosure instead of sneaking around behind closed doors.