NEWS

New, improved dog park nears completion

By ADAM ZANGARI
Posted 4/18/24

As the temperatures rise and spring flowers, relocation of Warwick’s dog park within City Park is nearing completion.

The park is located slightly north of where it used to be and offers …

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NEWS

New, improved dog park nears completion

Posted

As the temperatures rise and spring flowers, relocation of Warwick’s dog park within City Park is nearing completion.

The park is located slightly north of where it used to be and offers more shade.

The move will also increase handicap accessibility and include some updated materials, according to Ward 6 Councilwoman Donna Travis.

“It’s been a big part of what I wanted to get done for the animal lovers,” Travis said. “We’re trying to make it more comfortable for everybody, and we’ll see what else can be done too.”

Travis used part of the American Rescue Plan Act (APRA) funds allocated for her ward to finance the improvements. Each council member was allocated $200,000 in order to finance community projects in their wards.

The thought of making improvements to the park, Travis said, was something she had wanted to do for a while. Once she received the $200,000 allotted to her district, one of her first thoughts was making improvements to City Park.

“I figured City Park had been neglected,” Travis said. “It gets used so much and it’s been getting no maintenance, so when the money came, I thought gee, I’m going to try to fix it up.”

The dog park’s move is the second ARPA project Travis has earmarked for City Park. Another one of Travis’s APRA-funded projects involved installing benches in the dugouts of the park’s softball fields.

The dog park closed in mid-March as work on the move began. Since then, Travis said that the move, while slightly delayed, has progressed smoothly overall.

 “I’ve been by there a couple times already looking at it progress,” Travis said. “Weather conditions set the project back a bit, [but now that] we can get in there and start doing more work on it it will be better.”

While there isn’t a set date for the ribbon-cutting, according to Mayor Frank Picozzi, the project has not hit any major snags.

Outside of City Park, Travis has put some of her ARPA funds towards replacing the flagpole in Oakland Beach.

“Ward 6 is a big ward- it’s a really big ward to spread out my money to the best of my ability,” Travis said. “I’d still like to do a few more things, but we’ll find out how much they’re going to cost.

In total, the dog park move cost $85,240, according to Picozzi.

Travis said that the cost of moving the park meant that she might not have enough ARPA money left over to focus on other projects that she had been considering within City Park, including beautifying the entrance and building a gazebo, though she wasn’t ruling either out.

Still, she said that being able to make significant improvements to the dog park was well worth the cost.

“I can’t wait until it’s finished, so we can all enjoy it,” Travis said.

dogs, park

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