Planners discuss Town Field playground rehab with neighbors

Landscape architect Cheri Ruane shows attendees what the city intends to do at Town Field. Katie Trojano photo

A sparse gathering was on hand last Thursday at the VietAID Community Center on Charles Street as the city’s Parks and Recreation Department held the first of of three community meetings aimed at gathering feedback for the upcoming renovation of the Doherty-Gibson playground, which is located inside Town Field in Fields Corner. 

Ten people and a few toddlers listened as Annie Blair, the project manager, introduced her team and talked about the scope of the reconstruction. Currently, the playground includes a structure for two-to-five-year-olds and a larger one for five-to- twelve-year-olds. The All Dorchester Sports and Leadership (ADSL) field house is also located within the project area, as is a small plaza space and the physical entrance to the park. 

The team has a construction budget of $900,000 through the city’s capital budget, said Blair, adding that after the filing of construction documents, work is scheduled to begin next fall, and be finished in time for an opening in summer 2021. 

“We may not be able to get absolutely everything done, and we’ll need your help in establishing priorities once we have a wish list with associated costs,” Blair said. 

Cheri Ruane, a landscape architect with Weston & Sampson Design Studio, will take the lead on designing the playground. 

“The work that I do is very much focused on the design of parks and open space,” she told the attendees, explaining that she had done so on designs for various parks and playgrounds in Boston. “We’re really excited about the opportunities that this site presents.” 

“In general, things that we need to take into consideration are the priorities of the city,” said Ruane. “It has a large parks and open space master plan and they want to make sure they’re being inclusive and incorporating important components into playgrounds in every neighborhood.” 

She said that some priorities include walkable access to the park, addressing equity by making it welcoming to everyone in the community as well as visitors, keeping climate resiliency in mind, managing heat by providing shade, and building community and fostering connections.

“Climate resiliency for this particular site means that we manage stormwater, so when it rains there’s no flooding,” she added.

“And it’s important to make sure that the park is compelling for people of all ages and all abilities,” she noted. “What we don’t want to create is a place that only appeals to a very specific group. We’re designing for young people who may have mental or physical disabilities; that’s possible by allowing different routes of access.”

A key takeaway from the small crowd’s reaction was that while the park lacks a certain sense of place, and the existing playground equipment is worn down, people love Town Field because they have been using it for recreation with their families for generations. 

Recommendations included exercise equipment for adults positioned closely to the playground, enhanced entrances to the park and playground, a rubberized playground surface, ample shade, and maybe a kiosk with some maps of Dorchester. 

One concern was highlighted by some: How to discourage teens and adults from congregating in the park surrounding the playground for “cocktail hour,” as ADSL Executive Director Candice Gartley put it. 

“I love sitting areas,” she said, “but every time we have benches out, they are sat upon by people having cocktail hour, and when we put our picnic benches out there, they were used to cut cocaine. So we locked [the furniture] in the batting cage, which hurts my heart because I would rather have it out for the general public.” 

Ruane explained that there are some design options the team can look at by way of discouraging people from congregating in this way at the park, like opening up walkable access through the corridors and activating those spaces with positive energy.
 
“The more good you introduce, the less comfortable it is for people to do that,” said Ruane, “The less permeable the edge, and the more we activate the space and get people walking through there, the less people will hang out.” 

The next community meeting will be held sometime in March when the team will present design alternatives for discussion. Final designs will be presented to the community in May. 


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