Construction on Savin Hill’s McConnell Park is set to wrap up this spring after a five-year renovation undertaken by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department. 

The $5.5 million rehabbing has been aimed at improving public safety, upgrading the site’s athletic facilities, and refurbishing the playground.

Despite supply chain challenges, construction at McConnell Park is “proceeding as expected,” according to Liz Sullivan, director of external affairs and marketing for the Parks Department.

“We hope the community sees the value in a lot of the changes we’ve made to make the park safer, provide better facilities for sports kids of all abilities, a playground for children of all abilities, and clear up some of the circulation issues that existed on the site with some of the vehicular and pedestrian issues that existed at the site,” said Cathy Baker-Eclipse, who is overseeing the construction.

She noted that she also took the interests of neighbors and abutters into account.

“It’s got to be a park that functions for the abutters, including the local yacht club and Malibu Beach, which is actually a Department of Conservation & Recreation park,” she said. “It’s got to work for the neighbors who live with the activity that’s going on at the park all year long.”

Climate resiliency is another factor. According to Baker-Eclipse, the heavy storms at the beginning of 2018 were a wake-up call.

“We knew it wasn’t going to get better with time,” she said. As a result, some considerations for the project included “making those fields and facilities something that would last 30 years as we see rising tides, and providing some protection to the abutters so that they’re not seeing as much water in their backyards,” she added.

Weston & Sampson Engineers Inc. consulted on the project and Fleming Brothers Inc. is the general contractor.

In addition to the renovation at McConnell Park, the Parks Department is currently in the last stage of the community design process for the $1.41 million renovation of Mother’s Rest Park on Washington Street in the Four Corners section of Dorchester.

Sullivan, the department spokesperson, said the goals for the project include “revitalizing both the upper and lower terraces of the park,” upgrading the playground and plaza amenities, adding equipment for water play and adult exercise, and creating community gathering spaces.

“There are several underutilized spaces in the park that invite negative behavior and the new design aims to integrate those spaces by creating programmable areas that invite positive behavior into the park,” she said.

Neighbor Jenn Cartee said she is “excited” for the renovation’s potential. “The design thus far is really nice,” she said. “The designers did a great job. They’re adding a splash pad, a lot of passive exercise equipment, and gathering spaces with picnic tables at the top.”

So far, Cartee said, there have been three online community meetings and one session at the park. A final meeting is planned for next Thursday (March 3).

“We had expressed concerns in the previous meeting that even though they were well-attended, it’s still just a fraction of residents,” Cartee said, adding:

“Though Parks has been broadly offering language translation, we haven’t had anyone in the meetings who has needed translation,” she said. “So, they did put together a survey at the neighbors’ request so that people who hadn’t been aware of things thus far could give feedback on two significant factors that were tension points.”

The survey, which closed February 18, asked neighbors about their preferences for the staircase at Mother’s Rest and a possible dog park. According to Cartee, some residents want Parks and Recreation to replace the existing staircase with switchback ramps to make the park wheelchair accessible from top to bottom.

Cartee said that doing so would “vastly” reduce the playground space available while creating the appearance of a “concrete wall.” She said that it would also delay the project, since it would not fit in the current budget, while noting that any renovation would include an ADA-accessible staircase.

The other survey question involved the idea of a dog park. According to Cartee, lots of people want them, but due to space constraints, “it could only be used by dogs 30 pounds and smaller” and would cut a proposed group exercise or event space “in half or more.”

She said that the survey results should inform the continued planning process. “The park is heavily used now by people of all ages.”