2 parks in east Columbia to be upgraded

The cramped Hampton Park building in east Columbia will be demolished and rebuilt next year now that City Council has allocated the remainder of the money for the long-awaited project.

Another park in east Columbia, Southeast Park, also got a boost Tuesday when council directed city staffers to proceed with construction of bathrooms and other improvements at the 62-acre tennis center that is farther east than Hampton Park along Garners Ferry Road.

Renovations to Hampton Park, in the Cedar Terrace neighborhood, are expected to cost $777,374. Council allocated $492,000 for Southeast Park, which originally was to have bathroom facilities, but didn’t when it opened in the summer of 2006 to accommodate regional tennis tournaments.

Construction is likely to start in mid-February at Hampton Park on a 3,000-square-foot building that will double as a community center for residents of Brandon Acres/Cedar Terrace neighborhoods, senior assistant city manager Allison Baker said.

The park, a small, serene site tucked among crepe myrtles, oaks and magnolia trees, provides a 2,000-square-foot meeting place for neighbors and space for an after school and summer daycare facility.

“The building has always seemed like the world’s smallest building,” said Tige Watts, president of the Brandon Acres/Cedar Terrace Neighborhood Association. “It’s been 60 years since (the city) has ever done anything ... since it was built.”

Neighbors like what the city is planning to do, Watts said. “The new layout will triple if not quadruple” the usable space because of the updated floor plan, he said. Square footage will increase by 50 percent.

The 9 1/2 -acre property has a playground, basketball and tennis courts, a baseball diamond and a pond. Mostly, those amenities will stay as they are.

The renovation will focus on the building and will add 20 off-street parking spaces as well as some landscaping, Baker said.

Parks officials who met last week with neighbors said the renovations are to be finished during the summer of 2017, Watts said.

The decision to finish Hampton and to upgrade Southeast parks was based on council members saying it is better to use public money to finish some park upgrades rather than wait until the city has enough to move ahead on improvements at two other parks.

Mayor Steve Benjamin, with the support of Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine, pushed for shifting the money to Hampton and Southeast parks.

Devine said the Hampton Park building is inadequate for the neighborhood. She also chided fellow council members who pushed for park improvements in their districts.

“I need this in my district, and I need this in my district,” the citywide councilwoman said. She reminded District 1 Councilman Sam Davis the city just spent $3 million to build the Greenview Aquatic Center in his district.

“If I was a selfless person, I would agree with you,” Davis said to chuckles from others on council. “But when you start robbing the pot, it just gets smaller and smaller.”

Newly elected District 2 Councilman Ed McDowell raised questions about spending so much money on parks.

“There are some human needs that we’re not talking about,” McDowell said. “ ... I can’t sit idly by and watch senior citizens who have ... one meal a day (to eat). Do we do things because of political expediency, whether it’s my district or your district?”

Despite McDowell’s plea, council instructed city staff to proceed with plans for Hampton and Southeast parks.

Council previously had earmarked $427,374 for Hampton Park, Columbia’s budget director Missy Caughman said. On Tuesday, council decided to take $350,000 that was not designed for a specific project so that Hampton Park’s renovation could be completed.

The money came from a pot of money that City Hall calls the “fund balance,” which is in the city’s general fund. Those decisions mean the fund balance, with 1 1/2 months left in the fiscal year, is down to about $73,200 in money not earmarked to be spent, Caughman said.

This story was originally published May 19, 2016 at 11:57 AM.