This year’s April 1 deadline for Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund grant application came and went with a number of area communities putting in their requests for funding.
Southwest Michigan communities have been successful in acquiring funds for local park and recreation projects in recent years. For example, the city of Niles and Niles Township both received grants in early 2017 for projects connected with the Indiana-Michigan River Valley Trail.
Five other communities got the green light late last year for funding. Berrien County is slated to receive an acquisition grant to acquire acreage adjacent to Love Creek County Park in Berrien Center, while Hagar and Oronoko Townships received development grants to establish new parks and recreation areas.
Meanwhile, the city of Dowagiac and Ontwa Township near Edwardsburg are in
line to get development grants to pay for a new park in Dowagiac and a new trail in Ontwa Township.
Communities applying for grants this year include the city of Dowagiac with two grant applications and Berrien Township with one. Both Berrien Township’s and one of Dowagiac’s applications are repeat submissions.
Supervisor Bryan Bixby said the township is once again asking for $300,000 from the trust fund but will match it with a little more local money this time. The township pledged $100,000 last year and plan to pledge $111,000 this year.
He said the project has remained basically the same with a couple of additions. The existing pavilion will be upgraded to enclose the sides to be out of the weather when it rains. The township has also added a new overlook looking out over Lake Chapin as well as a trailhead for a future trail between Niles and Berrien Springs.
Bixby believes adding the overlook and the trail upgrade as well as having a bigger local match will improve the township’s chances this time around.
Range Line Park currently has two picnic shelters, outdoor grills, a ball field, swings, slides and a teeter totter.
Other project elements include improving the parking lot, adding handicapped accessibility, upgrading playground equipment to be ADA accessible, adding an entrance sign with landscaping, a volleyball court, adding restrooms and a drinking fountain, reorienting the existing baseball diamond and improving fencing.
The Range Line Park improvements were among those identified in the township’s five-year park, recreation, open space and greenway plan approved in the fall of 2016.
Dowagiac city officials are looking to build on last year’s success as they apply for two grants. It will be the third consecutive year that the city tries to get funding for Rudy Park improvements. The other application would pay for the acquisition of land to start constructing a new recreational trail.
The Rudy Park application will ask the state to award $190,000 toward the $254,000 project with the rest coming from local funds.
The four-acre Rudy Park is located off of M-62 on the east side of the city, contains a Richard Hunt sculpture and overlooks the mill pond and Dowagiac Creek. City Manager Kevin Anderson has described the park as the city’s “drive by park.”
The grant application asks for funding to pay for the construction of a paved parking lot, an observation deck, stairs to a fishing platform overlooking the pond, landscaping, lighting, sidewalk and a bench. A new entrance drive will be constructed across from Colby Street.
With the other grant application, the city is asking the state for up to $56,200 so the city can acquire a strip of land through the Dowagiac Elks Club property on the south side of the city. The Elks Club property is adjacent to the new Cass Avenue Park.
Anderson said the total right-of-way land acquisition project will cost between $75,000 with the city providing the rest of the funds.
He said the strip of land will be 40 to 50 feet wide and three-fourths of a mile long along the south side of Dowagiac Creek. The trail that will be created on the strip at a later date will be 12 feet wide. If the city is successful with the acquisition grant this year, they would apply for a grant to build the trail next year.
The goal of the project which will be done in phases is to eventually be to create a trail system connecting the new Cass Avenue Park to Riverside Drive via the Elks Club land and then to existing trails in the city cemetery. From the cemetery, the trail system would eventually connect up to both Rudolphi Woods and the Southwestern Michigan College campus.
By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
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