Neighborhood Responses

Below are responses from San Pablo Park neighbors to the student plans.  Send your response to sswanson@eminentsoftware.com and I will include it here. 

Neighbor 1:
I'm interested in how the tennis courts fit into any park renovation plans since they are heavily used, have much historical significance, and are in very poor shape.

Neighbor 2:
Thanks for the info.  Louise Mozingo was my favorite professor and now friend.  She is a very socially aware landscape architect.  I would trust her analysis of the park and hope that it helps the City.

From Stephen Swanson:
The strongest ideas I picked up from the students' plans were the need for a wide pathway around the park, and the desirability of a stronger central focus and pathway through the middle of the park.  Also, the students confirmed my view that the park needs more community focus, as opposed to a strictly utilitarian regional sports focus.  I think the students came up with some strong ideas to open up the community center (from a design perspective, programming is another matter) to the pubic and the park.

Almost the entire park is worn out and the rec. center is junk, so considering large-scale changes is reasonable.  If I were king of San Pablo Park and had a few million but not many millions, I would consider the following changes which would make a difference but not upset current sports use:  The southwest corner has been problematic for years - redesign it by cutting dawn the evergreen trees and create a draw (for example, if we had outdoor rec. staff, a wading pool is inexpensive to operate and would be huge on summer weekends, and could otherwise be a bowl for skateboarders).  Plant more deciduous trees in the interior of the park and place many more benches and scattered picnic tables through-out the park.  Create a wide perimeter pathway with some landscaping and benches on the perimeter.  Build a new rec. center that looks out on the park.  Push the softball field 150' forward towards the baseball field (this would still allow present field use) to create room for a landscaped socializing and natural area that would be fun for kids play as well.

On a programming level, San Pablo would benefit tremendously from having outdoor rec. staff and more programming for everyone.  An outdoor farmers market would be nice.