so it's going right now and i'll go
ahead and broadcast
webinar
all right so we're now live there
yes we are hi
all right roger all right do we have
everybody who's showing up
i believe so uh is jessica monica here
um monika
jessica's here monica is not going to be
joining us which i can
uh address when we go into the meeting
okay
um all right hello everybody welcome
this beautiful day today
and i hope everyone got a chance to uh
enjoy it i'm kind of a motion to open
the meeting
i'll motion to open the meeting second
hey uh all in favor
aye aye okay uh i'll call the roll
um uh manika williams who i guess mike
says won't be here
uh jessica sparks here
um matt mcpeak
matt
i know you're here matt matt got kicked
into attendees for some reason
say it looks like we lost him he's in
attendees mike you want to make me
co-host i'll move him over
yeah thanks uh matt's here uh ann
brennan
here uh victoria powers here
and roger carroll here um the first
thing on the agenda's approval of the
february 3rd
to 2021 minutes um
is here a motion to approve the february
minutes
second okay um and and um
victoria ii all in favor say aye aye aye
aye any opposed okay no no opposition so
the minutes are approved
um the first item on the agenda is uh
a presentation from elena andrews bike
you want to
introduce elena sure
sure um and i'm gonna i'll introduce
elena and then i'm gonna
pass over mayor kessler and i think he's
gonna pass it back but
elena thank you for being here elena is
a landscape designer with
uh spruce design um
elena was just a little background elena
was the chair of the commonwealth park
master
uh plan committee so she is really well
versed
in um what that you know project was all
about what that master plan talked about
um the city then uh reached out to her
to work on
uh you know we got this plan we got this
beautiful plan and we want to start to
attack some of the different components
within that plan and the city reached
out to honor
uh to develop um some design for the the
focus was going to be on the
parkview side of commonwealth uh west
and the you know focus on the arboretum
features within that
and uh elena has been working has been a
working group with um
myself mayor susan cortez larry um
hellman and uh grant archer and ron
gould
uh have attended as elena has kind of
gone through this process
and um so we're at at a point where she
has
a developed plan um and wanda
you know the board saw a very high level
view of it last
at the last meeting and i i want to
thank olin for coming today to
really walk the board through it have
some discussion about it and see where
we go from there
with that i'm going to pass over to
mayor kessler that wants to talk a
little bit about the process as well
thanks mike thank you board um for
having us here
um i'm really excited to talk to you
about this the uh to give you a little
bit further background on elena she is
also our staff consultant for tree
commission
and does a lot of design work for the
city
um for a variety of projects that you
see around town
gateway features and uh some
some park work that we've done the the
park
next to drexel the pocket park
renovation has been under
eleanor's guidance so it's been really
exciting to work with her on this
concept so
i uh after um the commonwealth park
master plan was adopted and approved
i went to approach elena and mike and
wanted to talk to them about
getting the first step of an arboretum
design in place we have hired an
arborist
dedicated specifically to our arboretum
concept and how do we
enhance the bexley arboretum and we went
and we toured a variety of
arboretums throughout the region
and we looked at different parks in the
area and so
we had a really interesting process
coming up with what what would be the
what will hopefully be the first section
of a
um carefully curated uh
conscientious arboretum uh walkway
uh along the perimeter of commonwealth
park as the master plan called for it
um before elena goes into the details i
want to talk a little bit about what uh
specifically one of the features that i
know that received uh some conversation
the last record meeting
and at the tree commission meeting that
happened since your rec board meeting
when they took a look at it as well
um and why we why we came to the idea of
a water feature so
the commonwealth park master plan which
is on the screen in front of you
references the concept of a water
feature at multiple points it talks
about it in
architecture and site furnishings as a
water features being a
a potential priority or
present in the park specifically in the
arboretum
sections of the park um
in the formal gardens that the concept
of having more formal
gardens more architecturally structured
gardens
the idea of of water elements
shows up uh in in the narrative for
the commonwealth park master plan and
then
uh in one of the major design studies
uh they talked about a large water
feature in formal gardens as being a
design concept that we could see
integrated in to the park
and then another thing that when we were
when we were going through the master
planning process for commonwealth
we referred to um examples
um from the community and i pulled up
the wrong page here but
we the study group looked specifically
at schiller and goodall park
as um some some parks that
uh were emblematic or kind of archetypal
sort of parks that we might look at
um for our for our park now
i'm also trying to share a quick little
series of images here that i've never
tried to do this particular thing on
uh we'll see what happens this is it's
kind of a rough view here but
so you guys know these parts and um
i'm sure have walked through them before
but uh when we look when we think about
the landmark
city parks in our region we think about
schiller goodale franklin park
as being exemplars so schiller park has
heavy water features as part of it
um so those are all schiller park images
goodell park obviously has a pond and
some architect
some sculptural elements as well with
the elephant fountains
the goodall park is unlike schiller park
much more structural much more
architectural in nature
less natural clearly very man-made
and then franklin park with the
waterfalls that are back in action
just recently actually those were down
for a while but franklin park has water
features throughout and so
what we found as we toured other
arboretums also is that a water feature
is a
pretty much any arboretum worth its salt
had a water feature that helped
to really set the framework for other
arboretum features
and we feel pretty strongly that
commonwealth park is an excellent
candidate
for a pond-like uh improvement um
i guess there are some questions maybe
about liability you know obviously
that's something we took
into consideration and double checked
before we went anywhere down that path
at all um you know
saying that it's commonplace obviously
it's you know any city
that i can think of has a park with
water features we do here bexley
um alum creek is a is a much larger
liability if you really think about what
you might uh envision happening but alum
3 gives a continuous
water feature that runs across alongside
many of our park spaces
many of the places along elm creek are
not fenced in any way shape or form so
we talked a lot about safety and elena
can address that but i just wanted to
to let you know that we were very
thoughtful
and coming forward with an idea that did
include a water feature
and having said all that elena who is
the genius in the room
uh will has control of the screen and
can
share uh the the the design which is a
concept and open
for obviously lots of conversation and
discussion
thanks ellen ready
let's see let's see if i can get already
hopefully everyone can
see my screen um ben thank you so much
for
that um introduction and kind of the
background it'll allow me to skip over a
couple of parts of the slides
i'm going to go through this relatively
quickly because we don't want to take up
too much of your time
i am happy to share a pdf of this with
mike and he can distribute it
to all of you if you are interested in
reviewing it a little bit more carefully
and kind of
diving in a little bit more to what the
plant material is
but um the powerpoint presentation i'm
about to share
we did share this with the tree
commission the tree commission did
unanimously approve it and this is
something that um
we prepared so that we could also share
it with with you share it with the
public
and so it has a little bit of background
in terms of how we arrived
at the final design so obviously there
are the four parks
um within the city of bexley
and this all started with as ben
mentioned the
master plan for commonwealth park that
was completed in 2018
and we wanted to be able to show people
that that we really did
start with this and so we have an image
of the original
master plan noting then that there is an
arboretum feature
and these are direct pages that are
taken from the pdf itself of the
the final master plan so there's the
arboretum feature
there's also the woodland garden that is
in the same general area on the west
side of the park that we felt was
appropriate to kind of incorporate into
our overall design
so we began with really trying to define
what would guide and guiding principles
be
for this particular project we came up
with
five guiding principles um the first of
which
is to provide a varied experience we
wanted to make sure that when people
experience the park that it wasn't just
always one thing that things were new
and discoverable and to understand that
there's so many different uses that
happen in the park as you all know
from you know practice fields to kids
just hanging out to people um kind of
walking around
the perimeter with their dogs etc
the second was to start to create a
hierarchy of use and formality right now
the entire park is basically kind of
used as
is i mean excuse me everything is
basically the same and we wanted to make
sure that we started to develop a
high medium and a low priority of
formality within the park and by that we
mean in terms of the high
formality or use that would be at the
center of columbia avenue
things are going to be a little bit more
architectural maybe perhaps more
more hardscapes it then goes down to a
medium use that would be on the east and
the west
ends that would also have some hardscape
but also some
landscape elements as well that are
introduced and then the low
use of priority would be basically the
athletic fields and priorities not
necessarily the right word but
formality where we would have the
athletic fields
and this graphic shows a little bit more
in terms of how we're actually starting
to zone that park
so the high as you can see as columbia
avenue
the medium on either end we will be
focusing on the west end and
the low where the athletic fields are
going to be located
the third guiding principle is to
actually promote education and awareness
we want to make sure that when
people are coming to the park that they
can learn about the plant material that
is there
the fourth is to establish clear design
guidelines we understand that this is
going to be
the first project within this park and
we want to make sure that we have
everything kind of defined well in terms
of materials and uses
because this is basically going to be
the setting the bar for
what are the future development that's
going to happen both at this park and
other parks throughout the city
a little bit more with that and then the
last is actually to look at
implementing smart phasing we want to
make sure that when we design this
that we're designing it with the
understanding that things are going to
be added on things might come prior to
the
construction of this and that no work
that we do is going to
have to be undone or redone in such a
way that is going to
waste money
after deciding what the guiding
principles would be we sat and had
conversations about what are the
appropriate features to actually find
within the arboretum
the first was to look at entry points
and we're focusing here the entry points
at the um
southwest and northwest corners of the
park
we wanted to be able to create gathering
spaces to actually have some benches in
the park there
was only when we started this was one
bench that we ended up having to take
out because it was falling apart so we'd
actually like to have some
places where people can actually sit and
relax and not necessarily have to sit on
the lawn
the water feature that ben talked about
we felt that you know bexley really
doesn't have a very strong prominent
water feature other than alum creek and
so we
felt that this was an excellent
opportunity to introduce it
at this time the idea of having
sculpture
within the park is something that both
in the master plan and with this working
group people were really interested in
and introducing some more signage so you
had seen previously the signage on the
walls or excuse me the trees that
identified what plant
materials it was it was we also want to
start talking about signage to actually
have something that says this is
commonwealth park
um another sign that we're interested in
having is an informational sign that you
can see
in the lower right hand corner that this
is where the cam bushnell information
plaque is at drexel circle
to have a similar plaque like this for
the arboretum so visitors and
people can come and understand that you
know the city of bexley is an arboretum
and
how did that come about and explain that
a little bit more
there will of course be paths that
connect all the various elements
within the park obviously there's going
to be some landscape and with the
landscape we wanted to
introduce both new trees as well as some
shrubs and perennials to increase the
variety that people can experience in
the park
material choices that we looked at the
paths
in general we would like to have to be a
compacted gravel path
what you're seeing here is a brass field
finds this is currently
was installed at the south community
gardens you can also find this at
franklin park
in their gardens in that area at the
entry points we would like to outline it
with cobblestone to make it a little bit
more special
and then the path throughout the park we
would just use a very simple black metal
edge and so it basically just kind of
blends into the lawn
where necessary we'd be having limestone
retaining walls
and then obviously the teak benches that
is pretty much now a standard for the
city of bexley
so now we can go into the design
this is an aerial that you're looking at
and these are
we had a tree survey that was done as
part of this process
and so these are all of the existing
trees and shrubs kind of the large shrub
masses
on the west side of commonwealth park
dropping away the ariel so things are a
little bit
more clear and basically in the
walk-through
in terms of how the design actually
starts to
build itself so as i'm sure you are
aware
there is the athletic field here that is
going to be
slightly raised with the better drainage
underneath that
you can see the vertical orientation of
that is how it's planned to be installed
the dotted line going east-west is if
and when these trees ever pass away that
that would be the preferred orientation
of that
athletic field so we wanted to make sure
that none of the components of the path
actually then interfered with that the
new path that you can see here here are
the corner entry points and then a new
path that we wanted to make sure avoided
major
roots of the trees and so it basically
takes a serpentine path
throughout the park the next layer is
that we would be adding annuals
to each of these corners and the intent
with this is that it would be similar to
the annuals that you see
at drexel circle so there's a pop of
color throughout the season
that just makes it a little bit more
interesting as people come by they can
actually see the park
the circular area that you see here
we're calling this a circular bosque
we would be creating a circle of trees
that incorporates an existing tree here
that this would be the informational
signage for the arboretum that people
could come and see
then we have the water feature in the
center
in and amongst this basically this grove
of oaks there are very few
or there are no trees or plant material
in this open space and so this is where
we decided would be the excellent
location for the
water feature so the water feature you
can see has a very
natural shape to it it um actually is
bound at one part
by the path but we also wanted to create
some opportunities for people to
experience it in different ways
so we have some steppers that come off
of the path that would go through some
planting beds
the green that you see here is a lawn
that would help define this
water feature as well with a small
bridge that would go over the path
the focal point of this would be a tree
we felt that that was and you can see
the image that was inspirational for
that on the upper
right hand corner there where this would
be essentially an elevated bed within
the water feature where we would have a
beautiful japanese maple there
that would help almost you know kind of
reflect and just really allow people to
see that the focal point of the water
feature is a tree
which is fitting for an arboretum and
then we also have some fun little
steppers
that were inspired from some steppers
that we visited at dawes arboretum going
through the water feature
after that we would layer in additional
trees
and specimen trees and evergreens the
evergreen trees that you see here the
thought with this
is that we would plant some evergreens
that are underneath the existing pines
that would basically help screen and
form a backdrop for this water feature
to create almost that it would be
somewhat of a surprise for first time
viewers as they're walking by you might
not necessarily see that there's a water
feature there and you actually are
encouraging people to come into the park
and
explore that and be surprised in the
area up
on the north side here there are a lot
of open spaces there that we decided to
put in some interesting unique specimen
trees
that um would just be interesting for
either their bark or their tree texture
or that's just something that is not
very common
that would be able to help expand the
inventory of the arboretum itself
the next layer is adding in a series of
shrubs and perennials things that would
actually take the shade in this area
that people can actually
learn a little bit more about you can
see that there'd be some perennials that
are along the side here some ground
cover underneath
trees plants that are a little bit more
water loving here
along the um the pond itself and then
tucking in more perennials around in
this area
and i forgot and forgot about this too
this in this area we're hoping to have
some type
of um sculpture there i think if you
recall there was like a
picture that had large um metal
circles that people could actually walk
through that we might be able to grow
plants or vines on top of
these are this is the detail that i said
i won't necessarily get into too much
now
with um what are all the plants in terms
of their latin and their botanical
names the recommended sizes for
installation
and the quantities that would be
necessary and this was done for the
purposes of cost estimating
[Music]
and then some visual images of what are
all the plant material that we're
looking at so you can see some of the
variety of trees up at the top
again some are noted for fall color or
they're
foliage during the summer um weeping
cherries
weeping pines plants that
actually flower throughout both spring
and summer and then into the fall
and then going down to a couple more
water loving materials like the irises
and some of the clethra in through there
after we completed this it was important
that we really took a step back and
understood well how is this going to
actually fit in with the larger context
not only within commonwealth but how is
it going to connect over to jeffrey
um park and jeffrey mansion and that was
again one of the ideas here in terms of
with the crosswalks coming across here
really trying to create this
as an entry point so that this is a path
system that
continues across and then future paths
that might
go throughout the park actually can be
linked in to people actually walking
along jeffrey park
itself
next steps that would happen after these
phases are complete are looking
at columbia avenue and creating more of
a boulevard there
there was a lot of discussion throughout
the master plan process about whether or
not that would be closed off to connect
both
sides of the park no one really wanted
to do that but we did want to create an
opportunity where we might temporarily
close
it off but basically create something
that's a little bit more special that
would tie the two sides of the park
together
and then at the east end create somewhat
more of a formal garden that would help
balance out the arboretum feature that
is happening on the west
end the next steps
would be to actually hire someone to
look at the pond design itself and so we
basically have the footprint we know
what we would like to have but we want
to work with someone who is a specialist
in it
to make sure that it will be designed
well that it's not just going to become
a you know cesspool
of mosquitoes growing that you know
whether or not we need to have aeration
in it
how we want to deal with the sides and
the bottom there are a lot of
technical aspects to it that we want to
make sure that we we think through
clearly the signage design we have um
hired someone who's going to be helping
with uh signage design for this park as
well as all of the parks we're going to
be taking kind of a holistic look
for the city of bexley so that all of
the four parks when you're there
it feels a little bit more cohesive so
more to come on that
we need to start looking at a cost
estimate for this to understand how much
is this actually all going to cost
and to make sure that we are looking at
the maintenance plan that is going to be
a coordinated effort between
the city of bexley and rec and parks the
park is going to be irrigated
so everything that you saw as part of
the athletic fields when we were working
on the design of that we wanted to make
sure that the
the watering system for the athletic
fields was sized appropriately enough
that it could actually
be expanded to irrigate the beds that
you see within the park
and as the mayor mentioned that the city
has hired an arborist to
specifically oversee all of the
functions at the parks and so we'll have
someone who's really daily keeping an
eye on things there
and that is it
so with that i will open it up to um
questions and comments if anyone has
some
hey it's it's matt mcpeak so it's great
to revisit this i was on the the
planning committee
but maybe just as a step back i think my
understanding of what we
are doing now is essentially you know
kind of previewing the updated
renderings but this is all about now
going out and getting estimates to
understand what this is going to cost
and then
there would be a strategy developed to
figure out what we're going to do first
and how we're going to fund it
is that is that correct
yes so yeah matt to
this is kind of phase one west side only
um creating the first step of those the
paths and and the landscape design and
wanting to understand if we had buy-in
from all the different constituencies
on the park so that we could pursue
a cost estimate and funding and this is
obviously
uh maybe it goes without saying maybe
not it's this would be a grant
request item so we would be going for a
fairly substantial grant
to help with uh phase one now we happen
to know we have donors
pretty interested in this project and
we've been encouraged by donors to uh
start you know
working on these different phases of the
park plan so that's the good news
okay thanks for that i'm i'm gonna have
to go on mute for
a bit but i'll be listening okay thanks
thanks bet
okay well if there are no other
questions or comments
i have a quick question regarding the
formal garden proposal for the east end
um that's not in the first phase
obviously
but ultimately will that require um the
current trees
in that uh area being cut down or will
the garden be built around
those existing trees yes
i mean that that that's not part of this
project now but what would happen is
that
when um the formal garden comes up as
in terms of the next phase that they
would there would be necessarily a
design process that would need to go
through as well
and the intent would not be we really
wouldn't want to tear down any of the
existing trees unless there was a
an excellent reason to do so but it
would just basically
not unlike what we did with this we
maintained all of the existing trees
that are in the park
yeah i got to give eleanor props and and
our
arborists obviously part of this process
we put a ton of time into making sure
that that path
navigated all the different route
systems elegantly and
logically and and we were able to put
this in place
and not remove any mature
trees other than we do have some dead
trees that need to be removed or
that have been removed i think but not
remove any trees
and complement the existing treescape
with trees and
plantings that really help enhance the
mature growth that's there today
and one more question will the cost
estimates
estimate future maintenance costs
over time that will need to be budgeted
by whoever's going to be responsible for
that i heard you all say the wreck
department would
assume um the maintenance of it so
that's that's a question i have
well i'll let mike um clarify or correct
me if i'm wrong about this but actually
the arborist that we've hired for
commonwealth and jeffrey is not coming
from the wreck budget it comes from our
parks department as in the
the grant archers parts department
so um that's maintenance that's
anticipated and budgeted
uh in that position in terms of material
costs i mean there will be some
incremental and material costs that we
need to look into and there's also a
concept for this
to have a strong volunteer corps in
terms of planting and maintenance
especially if um um i get my annuals and
my perennials mixed up i always do this
i'm
annuals right those are the ones that
you have to plant every year right elena
the annuals i'm always like if they're
annuals they should come back every year
um the annuals uh similar to kind of the
the huntington park at schiller
has that volunteer group and we're
actually today this year working on
uh on spinning that up so that it's
prepared for
some more rigorous uh fun projects
with some of these art breeding features
this is victoria i'm sorry go ahead
victoria i'll go next
i don't have questions i just wanted to
say thank you for the wonderful
presentation i
looks very exciting to me thank you
um uh mayor kessler you mentioned that
there are some donors who are really
interested
in supporting
the re redesigning of commonwealth park
will the naming stay the same will
remain commonwealth park or will there
be
donor patron mentions and and the
redesigner
would there be a renaming of the park
certainly not a renaming of the park
uh jasper i certainly wouldn't support
that um
the that's certainly not been talked
about or anticipated
i am not a huge fan of the idea of
having
a whole lot of naming rights plastered
all over the the park i don't know that
you know but i don't want to commit to
not having anything named i don't know
if a bench gets named or whatever
i think you know having a typology for
that is important but i think anything
like that should be pretty subtle
and appropriate to what we're trying to
create here which is a
timeless arboretum uh park feature
you know and this is one of one one leg
of a much larger overall picture
so i hope that answers your question i
know it's kind of a
political answer but you know um
eleanor this roger um i i just think
what you put together was really
you know extraordinary i i just had a
question in the sense of the water
component um this is like a much smaller
space than what
um i think than the mayor referenced
with good ale and franklin park and all
that
and i just what kind of thoughts do you
guys have to make sure that
if there is a water component that it is
um
you know safe in the in the sense that
this park is used um
you know often by a lot of little kids
with soccer and all that and
has that got into your thinking and what
type of things are have you thought
about to make sure that
it would be a safe uh environment with
the water component
yes and that is something that we um
have been thinking about
and um and then as i had mentioned in
terms of
the next step would be engaging with a
pawn consultant
and someone who can really help us
understand
what is the best way to actually install
it in terms of
how deep is it what are the size
actually going to be like in term
to make sure that if someone does get
into it it's easy to get out and so
there are a lot of things that had come
up during the design process that
was a little bit beyond you know at
least my expertise as a as a landscape
designer
with this but you can see that we have
the path around the edge of it
and um whether or not you know to be
able to create a little bit of a buffer
between that we have the lawn there
and so the hopes is that you know people
aren't going to be surprised when they
come
across it that there are a couple of
barriers