SEBASTIAN — The Sebastian Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee is eyeing a larger play structure at Creative Playground at the Barber Street Sports Complex and moving up the timetable for making one of the Yacht Club piers better equipped to serve those with physical limitations.
The discussion came during the committee’s monthly meeting. The group will meet one more time in July to finalize its recommendations to the Sebastian City Council.
The committee has almost $437,000 in Recreation Impact Fees to allocate to various projects and plans to use $100,000 for Creative Playground.
“I always ask kids (at the playground) and they want the pirate ship and castle back,” said Committee Chair Scott Simpson.
About half the $100,000 price tag would be a large pirate ship playground structure. What remains after installation could be used to put in a more permanent surface underneath key areas of the structure, such as under the various slides.
Currently, the playground is a field of sand with a couple swings and a large metal and plastic play structure with slides and hand bars.
Along with improvements at Creative Playground, the committee agreed to allocate $25,000 for playground equipment at Schumann Park and $185,000 for lights at the new multi-purpose field at the Barber Street Sports Complex.
City Manager Al Minner told the committee that he is also working on getting an idea of what it would cost to make one of the piers at the Yacht Club handicap accessible. He said the southern of the two piers needs to be lowered by about two feet and rebuilt with some sort of material that won’t break up during a storm.
He said a floating dock would be too expensive, so staff is investigating other alternatives.
Looking ahead to the following fiscal year, the committee discussed setting aside another $25,000 for playground equipment at the Sebastian Community Center, $100,000 for improvements at the Barber Street Sports Complex including a storage building, and $15,000 for a mooring field in the lagoon out from the twin piers at Riverview Park.
“Our facilities are getting old and unsightly,” Minner told the committee of the storage buildings at the sports complex.
Committee member Jo Ann Webster questioned the need for more improvements at Schumann Park, given the work that’s already underway.
“It has drawn a lot of traffic,” Committee Vice Chair Matt Sims said of those improvements at the park bringing more and more people there.
