Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Another big step was taken Wednesday for the $110 million project to transform the expansive Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park project, coming in 2025.
A management agreement for park maintenance was signed by Mayor Byron Brown and the Ralph Wilson Park Conservancy group, formalizing the public-private partnership.
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"The city will be responsible for mowing the grass, trash, recycling and security. Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Park Conservancy will oversee operations and maintenance. My Department of Public Works, in partnership with the Buffalo Urban Development Corporation, is leading the development of this major infrastructure project, a project that will benefit both residents of Buffalo and all Western New York," said Mayor Brown.
"Ralph Wilson Park will be a place where everyone feels welcome and valued, where everyone has access to world class sports facilities, exceptional green space and boundless waterfront views. We heard that loud and clear from Mayor Brown's team, from our many partners and especially from our community," said Executive Director of Ralph Wilson Conservancy, Katie Campos.
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Ralph Wilson Park, formerly known as LaSalle Park, will now feature three baseball fields, soccer field renovations, a new pedestrian bridge across the I-190 and updates to the inlet area to strengthen the shoreline and protect the park from higher lake levels and several weather.
The site work for the project has already been completed, such as a removal of some trees and other necessary clean up. A majority of the work will start this summer, with Gilbane Building Company named the park's lead construction management firm.
"The next round of work is really going to be focused on that bridge construction and some additional site work," said Andrew Raab, Deputy Commissioner for Buffalo's Parks and Recreation
The amenities of the park will still be open this summer while construction commences, according to Campos. This will all be explained as community engagement continues with a public meeting, Tuesday May 9th at 5:30 p.m. at the Waterfront Elementary School.
"Our community meeting on the 9th, we're going to get into that and show what still will be open at the park, which will be the pool, the football fields, splash pad."
Raab highlights the specifics of the remodeling of the waterfront.
"The current plans are to completely reconstruct the waterfront and that's going to be done in a number of different ways. The southern end of the park will be more of both a resilient plan where where you're building for the future and the storms that we've been suffering of more in the recent years, but also enhancing the ecology of the lake working with our partners over at Buffalo, Niagara Waterkeeper, the DEC, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to build a recreational but also a much more resilient and ecologically friendly shoreline.
The whole shoreline is being redone, to supplement the work that we already started with Army Corps of Engineers last year with that first phase of shoreline work directly in front of the current ward pumping station. So all of it is being addressed as part of the plan."
Campos also spoke more to the community engagement, with the "Image LaSalle" meetings that the public attended.
"We want to make sure that that community engagement remains a key strength. We want to make sure that this in the same way that the community designed the physical park that they're providing, they're creating what the programming will be. So it will be a vibrant place where they still see themselves.
We're re-launching that community engagement work with our upcoming community meeting. We're going to be asking folks if they want to self select into a community working group, which will be like an advisory board, where they can provide guidance to us on programming, security, workforce development."
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