Kid-designed Roy Lynch Park renovation underway

The children who helped redesign an Elmwood Avenue neighborhood park should be able to play in it by late spring, city officials said.

The park’s renovation, funded with public and private dollars, will include nature-themed features, including a butterfly garden and small climbing rocks, as well as an outdoor classroom and a splash pad.

Demolition of Roy Lynch Park playground equipment began in early December and plans are to start construction in February, the city’s interim parks director and parks’ planner said. The $225,000 renovation, which includes $100,000 donated by the Junior League of Columbia, should be finished by early June, they said.

One of the features most requested by children who live in the Elmwood Park neighborhood, as well as students at adjacent Logan Elementary School, which also uses the park, was a zip line, Todd Martin, the parks’ planner, said.

So Roy Lynch will have a 60-foot zip line that’s about the height of an adult from the ground. It will be part of a nature-themed play area in a corner of the park.

Other new features at the 1.8-acre park will include a play set with educational and music features, a board game plaza, a picnic shelter and butterfly garden, walking paths that encircle the park and green space, Martin and interim parks director Randy Davis said. A 500-square-foot splash pad is being redesigned with touch-activated sensors to conserve water. The splash pad will have a checkerboard base that can double as a game surface when it’s not soaked.

Neighborhood volunteers will help parks employees maintain the butterfly garden, Davis said.

Metal swings will hang from a 45-foot pergola at the back of an entryway plaza and a separate swings area will be tucked into a grassy area. The park also will have a bicycle rack.

The brick and iron fencing will remain as will the lighting and security cameras, Davis and Martin said.

John Gibson, president of the Elmwood Park Neighborhood Organization, said Columbia parks officials have worked closely with neighbors on the changes. Davis said the depth of the neighbors’ involvement in the design will become a template for communities around other city parks that need upgrading.

Roy Lynch’s airy design also will help with security because there will be fewer secluded areas, Gibson said. Parents and neighbors have complained in recent years about the number of homeless adults in the park drinking, using drugs and even having public sex. City Council once weighed the prospect of declaring Roy Lynch as a children protection zone as a way of restricting who can be with children playing there. The plan died under criticism from some neighbors and a civil liberties organization.

“There are a lot of new neighbors with small children that are moving in,” Gibson said of the welcome changes. “So, it’s going to make a lot of difference for them.”

A second, not-yet-funded phase would add an adult fitness area, three more light poles and seating walls scattered around the park, they said.

Early this year, the Junior League announced it was interested in partnering with the city to help finance improvements at Roy Lynch.

If the public-private partnership proved successful, the league president at the time said the organization was interested in teaming with the city to improve other public parks.