Plan for circus lot unveiled
Chad Frost Landscape Architecture. View PDF
February 16, 2023 6:04 pm
By Carrie Czerwinski, Special to The Day
Stonington ― Most of the more than 40 residents gathered at the Pawcatuck firehouse on Wednesday reacted positively to conceptual plans to develop a $2.2 million public park on the “circus lot” property at the end of Noyes Avenue in Pawcatuck.
“I love this idea,” said Rebecca Gomez, a Noyes Avenue resident who recently moved to the area. “I feel like we just hit the jackpot here.”
Gomez said she loves the neighborhood and is excited about plans for a park right near her house where her daughter will be able to play. She added that she hopes the park is approved and thinks it will bring development and other improvement to the area.
First Selectman Danielle Chesebrough and Economic and Community Development Director Susan Cullen were joined by landscape architect Chad Frost to present a conceptual master plan for the park.
Frost said that initial research shows the site was used for approximately five years, beginning in 1914, to host Tomkin’s Real Wild West Show, a traveling circus, and the earliest aerial photography found shows the land was still being used for an unknown purpose in 1934.
Frost also noted the lack of outdoor recreation space in Pawcatuck between West Vine Street School and the former Pawcatuck Middle School.
He explained an unused well house on the six-acre property would be razed to make way for the low maintenance park which would include a concrete walkway encircling a large oval grass lawn ringed by shade trees. The lawn would be able to accommodate a youth soccer field.
The plan also shows a natural playground with logs and rocks, slides built into a hillside, shade structures, a small event space with picnic tables, two public fishing areas and a kayak or canoe launching area.
Wetlands on the site, which Frost said comprise less than 5% of the property, would be restored, and invasive species like the Japanese Knotweed which covers a large portion of the property, would be removed.
The proposed entrance to the park, located off Noyes Avenue, would have an evergreen buffer to provide privacy for neighborhood residents and a 22-car parking lot.
The town has proposed purchasing the property, currently owned but not used by the Town of Westerly. Chesebrough said that when the town sold the property to Westerly to use as a well, Stonington reserved the right to buy the property back for $35,000 if it was no longer in use. She said that discussions with Westerly have so far been positive.
Residents raised some concerns about the park at the meeting, including cost, insufficient parking, potential environmental contamination and that it might become a place for unwanted activities such as drug use and drinking.
Frost said parking could be expanded if necessary. He addressed concerns about unwanted activities by saying evidence of campsites on the property indicated that those types of activities may already exist, and that creating parks has the opposite effect by deterring unwanted activities.
Frost said an initial study showed no levels of significant environmental contamination.
Additionally, he said the park was designed to require minimal maintenance and construction could be done in phases to spread out the cost.
Chesebrough acknowledged the $2.2 million cost was high, but she did not expect taxpayers to shoulder the entire burden, as the town is looking into obtaining grant funding.
She said a $480,000 request in the proposed 2023-24 capital improvement budget to help develop the park would probably be addressed by the Board of Finance in late March.