Students design new park plans
By JASON McFARLEY
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J.P. Curran, Julia Koslow and Thomas O'Neal don't know when or if a new Coquillard Park will spring up on South Bend's northeast side. They're just happy to have set the plans for a revamped park in motion.
On Tuesday the three Notre Dame architecture students unveiled a semester's worth of work that laid out designs to overhaul the run-down park located behind Perley Elementary School on North Eddy Street.
The presentation was part of a semester-long assignment for their "South Bend Urban Design" class. Architecture professor Michael Lykoudis coordinated the assignment with the "Our Park" project, an undertaking of the Northeast Neighborhood Revitalization Organization, the South Bend Community Development Department, the South Bend Parks and Recreation Department, WNDU Television and the University's architecture school.
"When you sign up for the class, you have no clue what you're getting into," said Koslow, a fourth-year major. "But working on this project has been a very good experience. We've had a lot of positive response."
Students, professors and others connected with the project displayed their work Tuesday to northeast neighborhood residents at the University's Robinson Community Learning Center.
Coquillard Park was built in 1912 and deteriorated over the years but has remained a neighborhood park, project organizers said.
"The park is an integral part of the community," said architecture professor Norman Crowe. "Many associate the park with their neighborhood."
Crowe said the aim of "Our Park" was to target the community park and include neighborhood residents in the revamping process.
They began plans for the park with discussions with residents, landscape architects and park department officials. Organizers also scheduled four residents-only meetings to determine what the community liked and didn't like about the park and what they want to see in it, Lykoudis said.
"This will be a community park designed by local residents," Lykoudis said. "Many children helped with the plans as they are now."
"I enjoyed the fact that children were involved because it is their park," O'Neal, a first-year graduate student, added.
Park designs exhibited Tuesday included renewed landscaping, a climbing wall, tennis and basketball courts and an open field area, among other updated features. The park will be framed by sidewalks will have an interlocking path system.
In the middle of the park, a community center with picnic and concession pavillions serves as a centerpiece.
Officials said the design unveiling was the completion of the first stage of "Our Park" and that there is no timeframe for completing the project. Organizers next have to obtain estimates for construction of the park and find sources to fund it. Stage three would include breaking ground at Coquillard.
Curran, Koslow and O'Neal, all of whom are returning to Notre Dame in the fall, said they intend to stay involved in the project.
"Even though the designing aspect is over, we told them we'd be out there volunteering, helping construct the park if they needed us," said Curran, a fourth-year major.
All News Stories for Wednesday, April 25, 2001
