As downtown parks go, Colorado Springs' Acacia Park has always been somewhat spare.
Andrea Barker, with HB&A, called it a "playful exercise," with no specific plan to bring forward to the city yet.The Downtown Partnership and architectural firm HB&A hope to bring more people to the park, and curtail the "negative activities" of vagrancy, aggressive panhandling, drug sales and use, with a "revitalization" of Acacia Park. Though in its early stages, proposals range from improved lighting to turning the old police station into a cafe to pie-in-the-sky dreams of underground parking and a raised walkway over Nevada Avenue to the YMCA.Officers hope to form a cadre of volunteers to patrol the park and report crimes, along with increased use by the public."It historically has had issues. It's the center of town," he said. He said emergency officials responded to 58 calls to the park in the last 30 days. Memorial Park, 53 times the size, had 32 calls in the same period.The Downtown Partnership hopes bringing more "positive users" into the park would cut down on problems and help a downtown suffering from a growing number of empty storefronts. A concert series at the band shell was launched last weekend to help do that.The city's first park, it was donated by founder William Jackson Palmer when he laid out Colorado Springs in 1871. Though records are sketchy, it may have attracted miscreants for just as long.Colorado Springs police officer Sid Santos, the area's crime prevention officer, said when he was trained for community policing in 2001, he was warned that Acacia Park attracts an unseemly element. And the trainer had been warned many years before, when he was a rookie, of the same thing by his trainer. And so on, going back at least 50 years, he said."It's kind of asking the question: What is Acacia Park? Is it a park? Is it a square? Is it a plaza?" she said."I think they need to revitalize it, definitely," said Susan Godec, owner of The Phancy Pheasant across from the park. "I'd like to see the park patrolled by a policeman."The Uncle Wilber fountain is popular in the summer, and you sometimes see kids instead of cigarette-smoking teens on the playground, but consider the other amenities: a band shell with no seats, a few picnic tables, a shuttered police substation and a shuffleboard court hardly anybody uses."It seems to be a homing ground for a lot of homeless people. If you make the park attractive enough for more people to come, those people should move out to other areas," said Terry Henderson, owner of the Boulder Street Gallery (which is actually on Tejon Street.)HB&A will make a first presentation to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Thursday on the various proposals. The meeting is open to the public.Click here to see the various proposals.While Santos, the crime prevention officer, said officers and the department's Homeless Outreach Team patrol the area, a constant police presence is impossible.He sees the location, close to services for the homeless, as well as the interstate, as the main reason. Police stopped staffing the substation about five years ago due to budget cuts.Said Santos, "There needs to be a mix of things. Some of it is trying to bring in the positive users, trying to bring in people who are observers, who can report crimes.""The more positive activity you can have in the park, the more those kinds of behaviors can go somewhere else," Butlin said.He talked with HB&A, and, working for free, its architects began drafting proposals. They brought in student leaders from Palmer High School, across the street from the park, to come up with ideas.The Colorado Springs Parks and Recreation Advisory Board will hear a presentation on the Acacia Park proposals, still in their early stages, at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, at 1401 Recreation Way. The meeting is open to the public.How much it would cost, and how the cash-strapped city would pay for it, have not yet been discussed.There are eight different designs. All involve more lighting and seating, some tree removal, a privately-run cafe with outdoor seating at the police station and removal of the shuffleboard courts. Some involve bicycle rentals, secure bicycle parking, seats for the band shell and moving the Palmer statue from the nearby intersection into the park.Acacia Park proposal"When I look at downtowns around the country, many downtowns have the equivalent of central parks and a lot of places to do things with their park," said Ron Butlin, executive director of The Downtown Partnership. "When I go by our park, it doesn't seem to be very well-utilized by the citizens. It's a beautiful asset and it's not very well-utilized."Neighboring business owners seem to support the overall concept.
The Colorado Springs Parks and Recreation Advisory Board will hear a presentation on the Acacia Park proposals, still in their early stages, at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, at 1401 Recreation Way. The meeting is open to the public.
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