Obecians heard about refinements to, and were surveyed on, preliminary design plans for a proposed children\u2019s playground\/adult fitness station in Ocean Beach Park at a July 26 public workshop.
\nNestled at the foot of Saratoga Avenue, adjacent to the Ocean Beach lifeguard station, the new area is to take up a little more than 6 percent \u2014 4,362 square feet \u2014 of the park\u2019s 66,567-square-foot grassy area.
\nThe park is to be named for OB teacher-historian Ruth Varney Held, who documented the history of Ocean Beach and is credited with being the founder of the Ocean Beach Historical Society. She was the author of “Beach Town: Early Days In Ocean Beach, To 1930.”\u00a0
\nDesign for the new park includes: swings, a rope climber and climbing mound, a spinning structure, terraced seating, a multifunctional mounded lawn, a decorative gravel edge, a fitness hub with stations, picnic tables, an art structure, shade trees, concrete crossings, flood control features and playground equipment for children ages 12 and under.
\nThe park project is being shepherded by Ocean Beach Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to maintaining and improving OB\u2019s unique character promoting sustainable practices.
\nKicking off the workshop, Jane Gawronski, co-chair of an OBCDC committee promoting the project, said it is not a novel concept.
\n“Much to my surprise, I found a picture of a playground that used to be here in Ocean Beach in a recent book published about OB,” Gawronski said, noting a child in that photo, circa the 1920s, is Carol Hart Bowers of OBHS. “In the background is a swing set and slide. I thought we were inventing something new. Turns out, no.”
\nPeninsulan and former Council member Byron Wear facilitated two hour-long workshops July 26 where residents learned about the park and commented on it.
\n“The concept of a children\u2019s playground and exercise facility is consistent with the approved Ocean Beach Community Plan,” said Wear. “We want to get input as to what it might look like. The OBCD\u2019s intention for this project is to raise money for it from private sources.”
\nLdG Landscape Architects in Point Loma has been doing the preliminary design for the park based on feedback from public forums since 2016.
\nWear said the next step in promoting the park is to vet the preliminary design shown at the workshop to other OB civic groups. “It will be a long process,” Wear added. “We\u2019re going to go back to the drawing board and give [the design] some tweaks.”
\nOf the survey passed out at the July 26 workshop soliciting the views of attendees on the appropriateness of the park\u2019s preliminary design, Sean King of LdG commented, “Anything that comes to mind \u2014 we\u2019re willing and able to discuss.”
\nThere is no timetable at present for the park project. However, public review, city permitting and fundraising to pay for it will likely take until sometime after 2020.
\nThere are two other major community projects, a new lifeguard station replacing the aging existing structure, and a new veterans memorial, also being spearheaded by OBCDC, near proposed Ruth Varney Held Park.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Obecians heard about refinements to, and were surveyed on, preliminary design plans for a proposed children\u2019s playground\/adult fitness station in Ocean Beach Park at a July 26 public workshop. Nestled at the foot of Saratoga Avenue, adjacent to the Ocean Beach lifeguard station, the new area is to take up a little more than 6 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":279343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Group working on adding fitness area, playground to green space in Ocean Beach","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}