Timeout For Mceuen Field Plan Sticking Point Is City Park, Memorial Field Inclusion

The mayor’s special McEuen Field committee cannot agree whether City Park and Memorial Field should be included in a grand redesign of downtown green space.

After an hour of deliberation Thursday evening, the City Properties Committee was split on whether the public would be outraged or grateful to discover a downtown face-lift would extend well beyond the area including City Hall, McEuen Field and the Third Street boat launch.

Few issues have sparked as much controversy as the future of the complex of tennis courts, softball fields and picnic areas the public generally calls McEuen Field.

Last year, tourism magnate Duane Hagadone suggested a library and botanical garden for the site.

Public uproar forced Hagadone to drop that plan. The city subsequently hired a consultant, HyettPalma, to draft a plan to revitalize downtown. That revitalization plan suggested significant changes for the McEuen area, including everything from restaurants to a performing arts pavilion.

City officials have promised to leave the green space intact, all the while pushing forward with HyettPalma’s suggestion that a top designer be hired to suggest a new look for the area.

It’s clear that won’t happen easily.

Thursday, the mayor’s group finally settled for appointing a subcommittee to try to resolve the question of whether City Park and Memorial Field should be included. The subcommittee includes John Barlow of Hagadone Hospitalities, architect Scott Cranston, attorney Scott Reed and painting contractor Charlie Roan.

Throughout the discussion, Barlow and committee members John Bruning, Charlie Nipp and Sandi Bloem pushed to have City Park and Memorial Field included in the area to be redesigned.

If the city is going to spend the money to bring in a top-notch designer, “it will be a missed opportunity if we don’t include City Park and Memorial Field,” Nipp said. That might not necessarily mean changes to the uses of those two public areas, merely improvements, he said.

Barlow agreed.

“You cannot just say this planner will be charged with a process that focuses on McEuen Field,” Barlow said. “To do a planning project properly, you have to give them the whole scenario from a public point of view and a private point of view.”

Sensible or not, the public will sense betrayal and there will be backlash, other members of the committee warned. “We are already under suspicion for looking at what we are looking at,” Reed warned. “If you broaden the target … you are going to run into negatives you don’t need.”

Roan emphatically agreed. “I cannot underestimate the impact it will have on the public when they hear the planner not only will make changes to McEuen Field but also look at City Park and Memorial Field.”

Ron Edinger, a member of the McEuen committee as well as a long-time city councilman, joined the dissent, noting the public hasn’t yet been told City Park and Memorial Field were going to be so intently studied as part of urban renewal. “I think we would be doing a disservice to the citizens,” Edinger said.

Cranston and Reed suggested there might be middle ground, where the architect/planner could take into account the activity at City Park and Memorial Field without making them part of the official, grand redesign.

The McEuen committee also deliberated about how to select an architect and talked about a fall deadline for hiring that person.

The group will meet again next Thursday at 6 p.m. in the City Council chambers at City Hall.

MEETING PLANNED The McEuen committee will meet again next Thursday at 6 p.m. in the City Council chambers at City Hall.