WICHITA HISTORIC PRESERVATION BOARD MINUTES 8 OCTOBER 2001 CITY HALL, 455 N. MAIN, 10TH FLOOR-MAPD CONFERENCE ROOM 3:16 P.M. The regular meeting of the Historic Preservation Board was held Monday, October 8, 2001, at 3:16 P.M. in the Metropolitan Area Planning Department's Conference Room, City Hall-Tenth Floor, 455 N. Main, Wichita, Kansas. Members Present: Keith Lawing (Chair) Kim Edgington (in at 3:07) Claire Willenberg (in at 3:15) Sam Lentz Staff Present: Kathy Morgan, Historic Preservation Planner Valerie Robinson, Recording Secretary Shelly Berger, Intern Absent: Jim Guy (Vice Chair) Bryan Barr Stan Sheldon Mike Gable, OCI Residential Permits Ex Officio: Heidi Dressler-Kelly, City Historian WSU Grad Students: Chad Kannady & Kathy Gale ITEM NO. 1 ROLL CALL The meeting was called to order and board members stated their name. ITEM NO. 2 ADDITIONS OR ADJUSTMENTS TO THE AGENDA Late filing for HCP 2001-00142, 225 N. Yale, room and porch addition. Item will add to end of Certificate of Appropriateness Majors. MOTION #1 (Lentz: Motioned) (Willenberg 2nd) Motion carried unanimously (4-0) Approved ITEM NO. 3 REVOLVING LOAN FUND UPDATE Revolving Loan Fund – Residential $ 52,000.00 Revolving Loan Fund – Non-residential $ 95,000.00 Deferred Loan Fund – Residential $100,000.00 Ruling from HUD says we cannot provide repairs to a secondary structure unless the main structure is also being repaired. ITEM NO. 4 CORRESPONDENCE None ITEM NO. 5 APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM THE 10 SEPTEMBER MEETING Defer until next meeting. ITEM NO. 6 OLD BUSINESS None ITEM NO. 7 CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS APPLICATIONS 1. MINOR: (HPC2001-00126) Environs, Steinbuchel House APPLICANT: E.H. Henry Company FOR: 1933 N. Wellington Pl Applicant proposes to re-roof same with same. 2. MINOR: (HPC2001-00128) Environs Engine House #6 APPLICANT: Miracle Signs FOR: 1301 S. Broadway Applicant proposes to add a small sign board to an existing projecting sign. 3. MINOR: (HPC2001-00130) Environs Hypatia House APPLICANT: Cornejo & Sons FOR: 1243 N. Market Applicant proposes to demolish temporary classroom buildings on Horace Mann site. 4. MINOR: (HPC2001-00131) Environs Monroe/Mahan House APPLICANT: Cornejo & Sons FOR: 1407 S. Broadway Applicant proposes to demolish temporary classroom buildings on Hamilton Middle School site. 5. MINOR: (HPC2001-00134) Environs Hillside Cottage APPLICANT: Strum & Son FOR: 320 S. Clifton Applicant proposes to re-roof house with asphalt shingle, same with same. 6. MINOR: (HPC2001-00137) Environs, N. Topeka/ 10th Street Nat'l Reg. Dist. APPLICANT: Wray Roofing FOR: 1007 N. Emporia Applicant proposes to re-roof medical office using built-up felts, same with same. Staff has reviewed and approved these minor C of A's and needs a board motion to receive and file. You will notice there are requests for demolition of portable classroom structures. This is part of the tax Bond project for school renovations/rebuild. Received and filed C of A's HPC2001-126, 128, 130, 131, 134 and 137 all in one motion. MOTION #2 (Lentz: Motioned) (Edgington 2nd) Motion carried unanimously (4-0) Approved 7. MAJOR: (HPC2001-00135) Environs of Sternberg House APPLICANT: H.D. Mills Construction for City of Wichita FOR: 1137 N. Fairview Applicant proposes to demolish 2-story frame construction house (City condemnation case). Staff just received this application and has not seen the property. Staff will provide recommendation at the board meeting. Central Inspection has requested permission for demolition. Property it is not listed in the undesignated list. No additional information was obtained on this property. Property is across the street from APEC Engineering. This demolition would not destroy or damage, the environs of the Sternberg House. MOTION #3 (Edgington: Motioned) (Willenberg 2nd) Motion carried unanimously (4-0) Approved 8. MAJOR: (HPC2001-00138) Environs, Hypatia House APPLICANT: Schaefer, Johnson, Cox, Frey FOR: 1243 N. Market Applicant proposes to build new 2-story elementary school building and then demolish existing 2-story school building. In the spring of 2000, Joe Johnson presented the scope of the tax bond proposal for school renovations and demolitions. Horace Mann was discussed at that time and determined there were other schools remaining in operation in the district that were similar in construction and configuration. Staff recommends that the board find no negative impact to the environs of Hypatia House for the demolition of the existing structure, and recommends that the board evaluate the design of the new structure after the presentation is made by Steve Rauser. You may want to see if more architectural elements from the existing building can be incorporated in the new design. Steve Ramser appeared for Schaeffer, Johnson, Cox, Frey Architects to present the plan. The board requested that any salvageable architectural elements from the old building be used in the new building. Motion to approve as presented was made and seconded. MOTION #4 (Lentz: Motioned) (Willenberg 2nd) Motion carried unanimously (4-0) Approved 9. MAJOR: (HPC200109142) Environs of the Allen House. APPLICANT: Bobby Miles – MEK Construction Co. FOR: 225 N. Yale Applicant proposes to add a room to the west side of house. He will use 3 ½." Siding will match existing house as much as possible. Add on wood deck with steps with treated lumber. Will build to meet City Code. Staff recommended that the board find that the proposed work does not damage or destroy the environs of the Allen House. MOTION #5 (Lentz: Motioned) (Edgington 2nd) Motion carried unanimously (4-0) Approved ITEM NO. 8 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS 1. Presentation of Riverside Park renovation plan – Larry Hoetmer, Parks Department Board needs to make written recommendation to the parks Department. I have included an e-mail provided by Council member Fearey. LARRY HOETMER: Parks Department. This project started in the early 90's; in 1993, a Master Plan was completed by the firm Jones P.A. and since that time this project has been evolving. The project was put into our Capital Improvement Project here in the Parks Department and we are looking at doing improvements in the year 2000, 2003 and 2004 with construction to begin next year. Today I have invited Lee Engler who is with Wilson, Darnell, Mann P.A. to give a brief presentation on Riverside Park. I might mention that their firm has given presentations to several groups including the Park Board and different ones that he will mention during the presentation. I am going to let Lee take over here and walk you through this presentation, it will be a captioned presentation of what has already been shown at the Riverside Association and to different groups and also to City Council. LEE ENGLER: Thank you Larry. This presentation when we gave it to the City Council was 30 minutes long and then it was about 1-hour long with the Riverside Citizens Association. I have whittled it down quite a bit. If I could a have 15 minutes of your time, I will go through it very quickly. This project has been a team process with our firm, engineering firm also the City of Wichita's Park Department and with Public Works Department. You can see we have put a-lot of people together on this. The project itself like Larry said started with the "92" Master Plan. The items in that plan were about $10,000,000.00 worth of work. At that time in "93" that was quite a bit; when we got the project, there was a specified program of development that did not include all of the items inside the Master Plan but a certain number. That number exceeded our final budget was to be which was to be 4.65 million. Our task was to take all that specified program; do a schematic design, and after the schematic design come up with a priority that could be developed within the next 3 years. We will be showing that later on. The improvements inside these plan looks at the facilities that are existing and how they can be renovated. Looks at the ground and what kinds of modification need to happen to bring it up to par. There are some new facilities and we will go through that, that the Park Department requested through that Master Plan done in 92 also the bicycle pathways, pedestrian pathway and looking at how they relate to traffic, parking facilities, what we can do to maximize the efficiency that minimize the impact of parking facilities. Then develop some entrances into the park so people will know that it is Riverside Park System. Our teams goals, our design teams goals were to: one strengthen the importance of the park to the public; show people of Wichita that it is a very important place. Strengthen the identity. It already has a historic identity to it. We want to make sure that that is very visible. We want to have a theme. And this gets a little confusing because there are three distinctly separate parks; Oak Park, North Riverside Park and Central Riverside Park. They all work together in the same system but they all take on different characters. We want to make sure that there is a theme that string all three of those areas together and then has identifying features that show that. We want to tell the history of the park. A lot of the history of the park has been removed and we want to tell about that. A lot of development that is happening right now has eliminated the craftsmanship and the public art that was done when Riverside Park was designed. We want to make sure that we reincorporate that into new development. Like I mentioned before we want to help some of the conflict between pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Of course, we want to encourage to use this park give them something as a destination to get there. Our first meeting with our team, with the City was with a gentleman out of the Parks Department, his name was Frank; I don't remember his last name. He had a lot of photographs sorry Jim Mason. He had a lot of photographs of what the old park used to look like. This is part of Central Riverside Park close to where the zoo is. Those are gone. Also around Central Riverside over on the right hand side, right here, that is where the old alligator pit used to be. I don't know if this is the existing duck pond or not but they had a pond in and such. Then you can see there is a big plaza, people could park their vehicles right next to the duck pond, so thing have changed a lot since this time and people have been brought away from this area. Of course, the majestic part of the park plan as it is right now is the only standing old structure is the park villa. We wanted to make sure that this was our icon for architecture, using the materials, like the tile roof and the stone pillars, take a look at this column right here, you will see that a lot in our plans. Using the arch, using this like I mentioned before, as a mainstay in our architectural development. The first thing we did was to have an artistic concept. What that did was use our artistic consultant and getting ideas on how to incorporate the art into it, how to do a plan artistically and just begin our dialog with the community in that way. We came up with a sketch here; you don't need to read it because we will look through it later as we get into schematic design. But in essence Oak Park would remain a nice natural park, but possible there would be another park incorporated into it. North Riverside right here would be more of a people place for shelters. A bicycle path would run around the perimeters along the lake. North Riverside Park Villa, our concept on that is that it would be a formal setting. It would be taken to the next height; instead of having Botanica there it would be a formal type of garden there. It could be a courtyard for weddings and other places like that. We would relocate the parking and take a lot of the roadway away as you can see here. The road way started at Nims going over to this street here is removed. We take away a lot of that hard landscape out. This is Central Riverside and in its instance, we wanted to make it a fun park one that would have features for all ages, young to old. Right now, it is divided by Murdock, from here over to here. We found that is a very big separating factor having people going from one side to another that became a block. So part of our concept here was to remove that street. In the Master Plan, Stackman was removed and it stayed in; so we still have the same amount of traffic circulation but it is in a different location and we keep the historic road, Stackman in. We took this concept to as you can see to six different groups, got their ideas on it, got their input and then took it to the next phase of schematic design. This is where we get more into the details. This is Oak Park, again here, the site of the lily pond; this is one of the first items that we wanted to look at. With a bicycle trail as I mentioned going a long the river, we would take the old pond and fix it up and have some lookouts into it and then fix up also the place which water come from the spring which is really a well. Make it all look a little more natural, incorporate some art into both of those items and then continue its overflow back into the rest of the park and I will show you that later. Have some parking built up here, have some entrances into the walking path now that the auto pond uses quite a bit. In the L.C. Clapp original drawing of Oak Park, from the pond down to the archway right here, there was a waterway. That waterway was done for a bog or wetlands to tie it all together. Because of processes along time ago it didn't hold water, so in our concept we would return that concept and use new methods to make sure that it does. Adding also another spring here, that would feed a pond that would be right next to an arch. It would be an education path along the side of that, bridges going over it and then the arch itself would be renovated to have a little seating area around her for small gatherings and then it's pathway would be ties into the rest of the network of trails. Here is a closer view of that. The concept of Art Park was brought up and it was to do two things; 1) it was to bring some more people into Oak Park and 2) to start giving it a definition. You can see in the center here, well let me go back, there are little squares about six of them around the site and that would places for this art. I am going to back up a little bit more, there are still more pathways going to 11th Street tying it to this center area, more of the pathways tying it all the way through. In the center of that would be the first installation of art. The meadow that is there now, it doesn't take a lot of trees out and it is a earthen structure like that of the arch in which it brings the earth the earth urns up. It encloses a small area in between and it would be similar in nature to that right there. It is called the pinwheel. In North Riverside Park. LAWING: Back to Oak Park, currently there is a small disk golf course on the periphery there. Is that involved in this or is that removed from this park in this plan? ENGLER: In this schematic plan, this golf course would be relocated from this meadow because of the conflicts with this piece, but it would continue around the periphery and then go into North Riverside. That is in the schematic plan. In our priority lists, no changes are being made. In North, Riverside Park there is a round about that celebrates the entrance into North Riverside. This is the bridge across from Krum [this is actually Campbell] Castle and we would take this intersection here and dress it up using kind of a wall like that pinwheel. We try to keep that wall in a continuous effort throughout the park, kind of a tying element; that is right there where that sign is. We will have a sign that says that you are in Riverside Park. It identifies this section, the material would be the clay brick like 11th street, it will continue with that theme. I want to back up a few; also in that park as you can see the roadway stays in. 11th Street has some parking in it as does that roadway. That parking then serves two shelters on both sides and then a restroom that serves North Riverside and then would serve Oak Park. All the rest of the area is left open and the bicycle path, pedestrian path kind of come through there and ties everything together going up to Minisa. LAWING: That restroom you mentioned, would that be about the current location of the Girl Scout House? ENGLER: No. LAWING: It is further west? ENGLER: Yes. This is the Girl Scout house, so it is right there before the bend. There is a wall that goes along the side of the sidewalk. There is a jump in elevation and the sidewalk is about in the middle of that wall. So we would take a section of it and change it around; have the wall go and be in that location. MORGAN: The Girl Scout House will remain? ENGLER: Yes it does. The shelters that we are proposing and the restrooms will take on the same character as the Park Villa building as you can see in this sample here. It would have the stone columns, the tile roof and then some timber elements that would give it more of a rustic timely or timeless depending on who you wanted to talk too flair like the old Park Villa. In the Park Villa area, we take the road out which opens up this entire area to be used by the public and pedestrians. We will take the parking lot and put it onto the eastside with it's own location on Nims. Of the existing ponds is fixed, renovated the fence that goes around it; take it down. There would be a piece of artwork in this location and then it would be tied in to the structure by a plaza. A plaza also takes parking from up above here down into it. There is a piece of art here. This plaza going to the west, if you will, is sunken, or it seems to be because there are rock walls on the side of that so it will enclose it very well. The back has an arbor that screens off the view of the restrooms back here and we keep all the trees; have a circulation of sidewalks around it and another piece of art here. As you can see, it is pretty well formalized. It goes very well with the architecture of the structure. Here is a closer view of it right here. Okay, Central River Park has a lot going for it; it has a lot going into it with our schematic plan also. I will walk you through as if you were coming in from the Murdock Street Bridge. We call that pretty much the main entrance into the park. With this historic bridge here giving it a nice characteristic that it does; we want to take he same round about ideas like we did at 11th street and dress it up and have archways at Stackman and also North Riverside here. As you can see it simplifies that fork in the road. Now you go around and split off. The round about slows you down and that is what we want inside a park. On each side of those roadways, we have these arches then a wall and then a sign that greets you to the Riverside Park. Currently those roads are one-way; no, this roadway right here is two-way and Stackman is one- way at this time. In side the schematic plan, Stackman is turned into a two-way street. There is enough width there plus we would put in little areas for parallel parking so that you could have the use of going to lunch at the Riverside is still in tact. Then the traffic goes all the way to the west half of Central Riverside Park. When we were coming up with this idea; taking out Murdock, we asked the Fire Department what they thought about it, we asked the Public Works Traffic Engineers what they through of it, and nobody had any problems with it. The Fire Department said that a lot of their service comes from the north about the other half would come from the east and removing that road would probably be a delay of 5 seconds. So they were not concerned. As I mentioned before the Traffic Department had no problems eliminating that or putting the roundabout's in. Taking Stackman around we come to the only parking facility on east Central Riverside Park. It is approximately, where the existing one is now, the existing one kind of runs more east/west. We are going at it a little bit of an angle here. This parking lot holds more parking than both of the existing parking lots combined. So we are removing one of them, the one by Wichita Wild. As you can see only a section of it is permanently paved by concrete. The other two lanes here would be paved grass creaked; which is the same type of materials which is at the Allen House, inside their parking lot or we could even hide it further with a plastic material that is used on the fire lane that goes up from to Davis Hall at Friends University; that material was used there. From that point, you get out of your car into a plaza right here. That plaza is the center of Central Riverside Park it has a berm going around the edge of it to enclose it. In the interior, here there would be a zero depth water feature and an artistic wall of humanity and it would spring out to lake on this side and then the Wichita Wild area over here. This is a model of possibility of what it might look like, this being the fountain this being the wall. The fountain would not be as modern looking as some that are being designed now, with all the pipes and everything, it would be pretty much low key and natural looking, something like this. We don't want to be gaudy about it. The wall of humanity the idea is to show the types of people that are going to use the park. There could be up to 15-20, we don't know, it has not been designed yet, but the idea is to show the people in there. From that point there is a connection from the plaza to the Wichita Wild site here through an arch this resembles of the rest of the architecture that we are purposing. This is an existing building here and this right here is the existing cave. The condition for the keepers if you will, inside that building is bad. They don't have appropriate locations for holding animals. The concept is to remove the restroom on the west side of the building and the tank room that is in the center of the building, fix the existing office and then put appropriate holding for the animals that they use for education purposes and also for winter holding for the animals that are inside here. The public really likes the fact that the animals are staying and we want to address that and keep it going. In that site then there has to be a restroom facility in this park and next to this area and so over here where the old duck pond are and that concession stand, that is where the restroom would be. It would take on the same character as the shelter that I showed you before. The new duck pond would then be part of this nature education spot in which there would be a little stage here and different locations along it that would help be a more natural setting for ducks and other animals and also a botanical park. This is the Pagoda building, and that Pagoda building would be refurbished. In the old original plan this is from 1901 there was a track, if you will, a strolling track. In the center of it were the cross hairs of two prominences as you can see; there was no Murdock Street just the ones going around next to the river. One of the ideas from our development list was to have something symbolize or signify that that was once there. With that in mind, we incorporate this strolling path. It is not in the same shape, but the same feel as you are going around the park, it is a full quarter mile, which should be very nice for strollers, and it ties together all the different parts of this park, which works very nice. It also encloses the main hub, so you see it goes past the existing park here, it also enclosed the lake feature here which it also give another opportunity to experience water and nature just like the duck ponds. It also has an overlook on it. LAWING: Address the lake feature, you mentioned it a couple of times? Now where there is currently equipment. ENGLER: No sir. LAWING: It is further east. ENGLER: Play equipment is right here. Murdock as it comes through right now and it goes over to here has a low spot. That low spot is right there this is where the old cross hairs of the track or the strolling paths crossed and you can even see some of the trees that used to go around that. There are some trees and those trees that are existing there right now, so we are celebrating that point with a gazebo. It is also lined up in viewing with Murdock Street Bridge. You go over the bridge, you are looking through the columns and you see this gazebo in the background. That gazebo would take on a historic character. There was no gazebo there as far as we could find out and so we are trying to recreate something that would take on a historic flair and have some symbolism in the floor plan; a sunflower is shown here. We are having a lot of fun with this. We also have a tureen garden here. This idea came in not to have a lot of rolling hills to this part of the park. Somebody said wouldn't it be great if there were some kind of sledding hill, but that kind of died but this came about. This is kind of like the earth structures over at Exploration Place, that one didn't make the cut on our final plan. Inside this area over here, which has been picnic area for quite a long time, stays picnic area with some new table and chairs; another restroom at the other end of the parking to serve that site. Open area here for impromptu soccer games if you will. Then the incorporation of another piece of art here called the attenuated calendar. This is a sketch of it and what it is; it is not unlike a stone hinge in which there are holes drawn in on it which kind of show something else. It shows historical dates. A wall and columns feature on each side of it that slows people down as they are coming across Nims. Over in this area we are calling it the activity area if you will, the performance area, it would be a renovated stage feature it would be kind of a pad inside an amphitheater and then a run center here. Overflow parking next to it, as you can see it has that same grass creek feature so that it does not become prominent. We have few areas of landscape minor gateways at each one of the entrances. The Vince area as you can see here is connected to Stackman and Nims. This is a model of the stage. Here is the stage area and this is the amphitheater. It has that wall, that underlining wall like the pinwheel sculpture so we are bringing that theme all the way into Central Riverside Park. This is a typical, not typical but a similar type of area like in Oregon; as you can see there is a little stage area, a little place to sit and then it flip flops and there is a stage on this side with more seating on this end. We want to not copy this but use some of the good features inside this plan in that area. The run center is not a large structure, but it does have restroom in it, an office and area there that when there is a marathon or a bicycle race there could be a check in spot. As you can see it has the same character as the rest of the structures. Where do we go from here? That was a grandiose wish list. The total on that was about twice our budget so we had with the Parks Department, and a lot of input from a lot of people to try to select what could be incorporated in the first phase, the 4.65 million. We opted to do a lot of clean up on the things that needed fixing right now and then also have something at the end of the first phase that would start a lot of excitement, that would hopefully get people excited about doing the rest. Oak Park it would be fixing the Lilly pond and its supply, dressing that up really nice putting some art into it and making it look brand new. Inside the Arch, we would fix that arch and not completely take it apart if you will and put it back together, but keeping it as it is, but structurally making it sound, putting all the pieces that have fallen off of it back onto it and to tuck point it and making it safe pretty much. Also in that area would be the pond, like L.C. [LW] Clapp's plan with it's own separate well and fountain there. Also in the first phase would be the beginning of the wall that that binds the pinwheel located on the inside of the meadow. Inside the Park Villa the roadway and the existing parking would be removed and new parking would installed there on the east side and the pond itself would be renovated, re-landscaped, art incorporated into its design and made better than it is now. LAWING: On that last slide would that road that runs parallel with the river, would that take you to the entrance way by the 11th Street bridge? ENGLER: That is correct. LAWING: You are going to maintain that in the design? ENGLER: That is correct. The only roadway that goes away is tying Nims into this street and then it also come over to here and we figured that was a little redundant and a lot of circulation that didn't need to happen and we wanted to open that up to people playing inside the park perse. In Central Riverside Park this kind of shows the opposite, these are areas, which are not included inside our phase I plan. We are not including the minor landscape areas such as these corners here and a few of the others. We are not putting the restroom in. The bicycle path that starts at the Central Street Bridge and going all the way to Nims is not included in this phase. There is a terrine garden, but everything else that I descried would be incorporated in the first phase. One the west side of Nims the minor landscape gateways would not be, neither would the parking lot, the overflow parking lot nor the service drive going to the new run center. It is a lot of things and I hope that the Historic Board can see that we did a lot of new but we also tried to incorporate a lot of the historic and really celebrated the structures that are there. That is the end of my presentation. LAWING: Any questions from board? WILLENBERG: The existing restroom by Park Villa is there any plan to do any preventive maintenance that has been deferred. ENGLER: The Fleet and Building Department of the City did some work on that I don't know how many years ago, but that was not part of our scope of work. Neither was Park Villa. WILLENBERG: It really does have some maintenance that needs to be attended to. It is a nice historic part of the park. You say you want to preserve. LAWING: You listed a number of different boards that this appeared before, we have support from those folks as well, or what has been the commentary so far? Just in a nutshell? ENGLER: In a nutshell there was a lot of changes that were made to our first phase I plan and that was kind of shifted more into sharing money to places that needed it to other areas of the park. At this stage, here they seem to be very happy with the direction that we are going and the money that is being put into it. LENTZ: There was a little area on the west side of Nims I believe it was a Spanish World War monument, will that still exist? ENGLER: Yes it will remain as is, that was one the landscape areas that we really wanted to dress up but because of budgetary constraints, we are not touching it at this time. But it does remain, it does remain. LAWING: I have a question about the humanitarian wall? I guess I am not getting the concept as to what kind of value that adds to the park. At the risk of kind of being nit picky and throwing suggestions in from the bleachers if we want to try to preserve or retain or at least acknowledge some of the historic essence of the park couldn't we change that humanitarian wall and do something to honor the Native Americans that were here at the confluence of the river years ago? Or some of the early pioneers of the City of Wichita whether they are Clapp, Murdock, Griffenstein or others? ENGLER: I apologize for that part. Inside phase I there are twelve points along the strolling path which will be points of historic significance that will have a marker and quotations if you will along those area. We are incorporating those stories into the development that is past. Some of the, I wish the artist was here. From his discussion what he would like to see in that is not only the people that are using the park right now…he is thinking about fifteen to twenty figures of people that are using it now, but then also people that also used previously. He wants to tie those together. That has not been completely designed. So we don't know exactly what it looks like, but in his mind it is, people side by side, by side making a wall, showing the different type of people that have and are going to be using the park. EDGINGTON: I have a question about the lake feature in the park and this may just be a personal issue. It seems like the park itself is surrounded by some pretty significant water features and there is duck ponds made and I think we are loosing a lot of the effect of this park by cramming a bunch of stuff in it. The lake is kind of one more thing that you loose the effect of wide open, what we call a passive use, go sit on a blanket, read a book. I don't think there are very many of those spaces like that left once you get through with all the bells and whistles. As a life long Riversider I know that that is going to be a huge concern to a lot of the people that live around there; that is there are wonderful places in that park for just doing nothing. I think in our society we try to entertain everyone and that seems what we are doing here. We have art to please these people and we have to have a written history for these people and in doing all of that we have lost the essence of the park and that really concerns me. I know that you have done hours and hours on these plans, but as a planner, knowing that this was coming up I have been doing a lot of reading on our park systems in the US. We have made such a change in our Parks Departments and Park Boards to the recreations end of it that we have kind of lost site of the park aspect. I really do hope that we give this some serious thought. ENGLER: Not to defend anything but just a comment, there are two kinds of parks on the extreme. There is the natural passive; and then there is the active sports park on each side, we have the tennis center on one side and we have Oak Park on the other side. Therefore, yes there is a lot going on in this plan. And yes there are a lot of people to plan for. LAWING: Let me just pick on the lake, I was a little concerned too. What is that adding, what is that adding to the design? What does that bring to Riverside Park? If you want to go sit on the side of the water, you have a lot of room along the river. What is the lake bringing to the design? ENGLER: That is also the low spot of the park it is part of the drainage system of the park that is number one, not that it can't go away and there can be a bunch of drainage structures in the center there that is very true. The other aspect of it is that it is a time feature. It is also what sticks in my mind right now is the lake at Central Park in New York, and also the lake in Boston in which it is a feature that people kind of come to and sit on the edge and they watch what is going on. It is a little bit more useful than the river is. You can have more access to it. WILLENBERG: I think they have the lakes because they don't have the river. I don't know what our function is here, so I'm not trying to say too much. Could you help me, is our function to try to help preserve the historic nature of this park? LAWING: We have been asked to give a recommendation to the Park Department and so I think our overall function is to preserve the historic nature of this City so I think the comments that we would make would probably be along those lines. We are not approving or disapproving anything. I think we are just being asked to comment on what is being presented to us. I know we have a few other speakers. Are there any questions for Mr. Engler at this time? We might throw a few questions at you during this but lets move one. Who would like to address this issue? Please come to the microphone and state your name for the record please. ERIC ENGSTROM: I am a resident of Riverside actually three generations of my family lived in Riverside. I live on Wiley and border the park. I will give you briefly my background. I am a National Trust for Historic Preservation, Advisor, Advisor Emeritus for the State of Kansas. I have been very active at the national level with the National Trust. For 20 years, I have been a member of the Historic Sites Board of Review, many of those as Chair and currently the Governor's Designee on the Historic Sites Board. I am here as an individual, third generation Riversider. Many thoughtful people have been involved in this planning process. Some of us back 10 years ago, back in 92, 93. It appears to me that the plan that was evolved at that time is not reflected in the current designs. Even though the RFP says the 93 Master Plan is to provide general guidelines, it seems to me that the designers have gone overboard in redesigning our parks. Part of what was essential initially was to revitalize the wonderful original Clapp plan, particularly bridges, gateways, memorial and existing buildings. Frankly I see little of that occurring, much more is added, more built environment is added to what is a gorgeous natural park that I hope the Pam Kingsbury will give you a little of the historic background. The strolling park for Central Riverside Park was which I was familiar with it was designed and suggested and got great support from all in Riverside at that time, was the strolling park. It seems to me that the current design doesn't reflect that approach which was agreed upon 10 years ago but apparently is out the window now. There was a great desire to see a cleanup of the river and to see the banks enhanced. I see no part of that. The emphasis should be on the rivers as being the focal point to a large degree on this whole system. That is how they were designed and that is where they were set in the bottomlands of the river. Security issues were important for those of us in the neighborhood. Those are really given no significant time in this study I believe. I believe having more created structures will make security even more difficult as you change from open vista and open lawns to broken up areas with more plantings and more structures. Maintenance issues are major in that plan. The designers quite frankly said they were not asked to talk about that, but what is being created is something that is going to be extremely difficult to maintain with a Park Department that has a not enlarging budget each year but one that because of the things they are asked to do really has become smaller. The public art concepts in my opinion are too, too much. They are not appropriate for this park system. I frankly think they are extremely contrived. Parts that are in appropriate of this plan and I would say that I support 50% or 60% of what has been designed. It is the over the top rest of it that I take issue with. New parking lots are suggested when no case is made for the need for that. Parking is adequate, the only time of year when there is not sufficient parking in the Riverside Parks are during River Festival and 4th of July and people do find places to park. Those of us who live on the boarders of the park don't mind having cars parked bumper to bumper during those times of the year. If we go to more concrete over grass, I just don't think what we should have. I still don't believe that the traffic issues have been appropriately addressed particular for Central Riverside Park. I would be very pleased to see whatever written responses the architects have and maybe you have those to share with us. I am very worried about extention of North Riverside Drive, which goes from my house to Stackman. Those are inappropriate and I don't think they have been studied sufficiently. The concepts of public arts, some appropriate sculptures maybe correct, but such contrived things as this wall of humanity and a "Stonehenge" in Central Riverside Park to me are absolutely, absolutely inappropriate. There was some mention made that this was restoring art features to the park. The park never had those. It lost some cannons I think during scrap drives during World War II that were Spanish American cannons, we still have the wonderful cannon and Spanish American Memorial. You may have seen quickly a view of some lights that were purposed which are poles with squiggles on them around this zero pond area. The speaker was clear to point out that these are distinct or at least the plan says that these are distinct from the more traditional lights that are already in the park and that will be replicated. I think the design of those was especially bad, I think it would give further lack of continuity to what we are trying to establish as a park. Also I am very concerned about signage that has been suggested. You saw these little figures sticking up saying Riverside Park, the designer seems not to have been aware, or at least work with the design concept that is being done right now for Museum Boulevard which is an approach to bring all the initiatives all together along Museum Boulevard together and to have signage that looks appropriate in that setting. It would seem to me, at the very least, that would be the kind of concept that we look at for what is being done now. The River Corridor Project is also underway. There has been no talk about he coordination between, or the possibility that we are duplicating functions and public gathering spots between the public river corridor and what we have in our park. I see amphitheaters everywhere. Frankly, I don't think we have that demand for them here in Wichita. This lack of integration of many of these other things going on in the downtown of the City is of great concern to me. I thank you for your time and if you have any questions, I will be glad to try to answer them. LAWING: Thank you Mr. Engstrom At this time? Thank you very much for your presentation sir. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? State your name and address for the record please. KATHY DITTMER: I live at 823 Litchfield; I am currently the President of the Riverside Citizens Association and Chairman of the Park Use Taskforce, which has existed for six years. The Park Use taskforce first existed because we call them the problem in the park. What they really were, were a handful of people who came and disturbed a whole bunch of other people having a good time and they came with guns and fists and a lot of problems. What we soon discovered was we thought causing was the problem, what we soon discovered was the problem was that park was empty on weekends, very rarely was it being used because of the trouble previously in the park. The Task Force spent four years trying to reinvent events in that park to get people back there, we used the stage area and we did that through the years. Then the park revitalization plan came forward again. I would tell you that I have only lived in Wichita 14 years so I don't know what thing were like, like a 100 years ago but from what I can see and read and study Riverside Park has always been a park that has been in transition, or change, to meet the needs of the population. Murdock was there, it wasn't there, there used to be a race track, it is not there, it used to be able to drive right to the center to a big fountain, so change is a part of the historical significance of the park. The neighborhood itself is undergoing change because of it's nearness of downtown and the museums and because of the affordability of our housing we are now seeing a great influx of young families into the neighborhood who use Riverside Park a great deal and who are remaining. I hope the plan here seems to want to try to pay attention to the historical significance items in that park, maintain them, and keep them. I am hopeful that we all can also look towards some new features such as the interactive water park feature which has been a huge success in an old park called Lincoln Park I believe in downtown, just south of downtown Wichita. The Task Force has seen this plan and has worked with this plan and by the way asked in it's newsletter to include any member of the Neighborhood Association who wish to study the park plan. I cannot speak to public art, except to say that public art comes and it is there and it causes people to take notice to think and to study. As it has to do with anything with this plan, I would hope that the Park Department could find outside funds to put in any art that goes in that park. I think public art is good, but I think art is very subjective. I think we can do both, refurbish the park, have it have a face-lift, reintroduce it to the rest of the city; have it used well. The plan as I see it leaves lots of space to curl up with a book yet by the river and also preserves the animals that are there who are well loved. The duck pond I will let you know that some of want to make the rocket an art piece because we don't want it to leave the park, those are just minuscule little things. I think there is a way to do both refurbishing in the park and preserving the historic significance of the park. Lastly, I would say I think we need to remember the historical significance of that park is that it has changed to meet the needs of the people around it. Thank you. KINGSBURY: Insert Wichita's National Treasure: The Riverside Park System by Dr. Pamela D. Kingsbury, Architectural Historian) The art in Riverside Park system is nature. It is fundamentally the S curve of the Little Arkansas River, which Clapp emphasized. It is open space, meadows, trees, and shrubs with the occasional building. This park is one of the great landscaped parks of this country and it has been so noted. To destroy it would be criminal. It would be like taking Mary Cossets, mother and child at the Wichita Art Museum, which is the finest picture in the collections and repainting it so that is Santa Clause with child. What we need is to renovate the park not destroy what is there, to bring Oak Park back to its wild state that Clapp planned for it and that has been ignored for years. One of the problems is that the Park Department as Eric said, they have not had any money and have not been able to take care of any park let alone Riverside Park. With the proper money, it can be restored and people will come to the park as they have historically in the past, generations have and we need to keep this great landscape park. It is just as important as the Parks mentioned in Brooklyn, Chicago, etc it is just that important. I would urge that we don't turn it into a recreational park, but that we keep it as a landscape park. Not all public golf courses can be MacDonald Park there are all different kinds of golf courses. In this City, you have different kinds of parks. MORGAN: I would like to make a note that there is a written statement that will be attached to the minutes that was provided by Dr. Kingsbury regarding the history of L. W. Clapp and his designs, and homesteads and influences and the letter from Stephen Perry. The Riverside Park system located in the S curves created by the meandering Little Arkansas River as it flows from north to south to meet the meandering Little Arkansas River as it flows from north to south to meet the Big Arkansas River comprises four parks. At the north is little Oak Park followed by the much larger North Riverside Park lying on the northern bank of the Little Arkansas River. To the south of it is Central Riverside Park surrounded on three sides by the Little Arkansas River and finally South Riverside Park at the bottom of the final S curve created by the Little Arkansas River. The Riverside Park system is the result of foresight and shrewdness on the part of L. W. Clapp (1858-1934), Commissioner of Parks (1921-1934), later mayor and Wichita's City Manager. As Commissioner of Parks Clapp took advantage of the depressed Wichita real estate market in the 1980's to purchase the bottom land in the S curves of the Little Arkansas River. Originally, this land was purchased by investors in the Keene Syndicate, a land corporation from Keene, New Hampshire in the mid-1880's at exorbitant prices. When the real estate boom of the 1880's collapsed in 1898, Clapp was there for the next decade to purchase the bottom land at incredibly depressed prices to create a park system for Riverside and the City of Wichita. Not only did Clapp, along with Mayor Finlay Ross (1847-1933), convince the city to underwrite a $14,000.00 bond issue in 1897 to purchase the Little Arkansas bottomland for the city park, but he was the architect of the Riverside Park system. Clapp's model for the park system was a landscape park in the manner of the father of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. (1822-1903), a contemporary of Clapp. The basic concept of Clapp's park design, which echoes Olmstead's aesthetic, is that the environmental value of naturalistic beauty, in this case, the Little Arkansas River, is paramount and that a park evolve naturally from local circumstances. Clapp believed that parks should have a simple, broad series of open spaces of clean greensward, in this case, green lawns, with sufficient play of surface and a sufficient number of trees and shrubs about to supply a variety of light and shade. Like Olmsted, Clapp believed that a park should offer the greatest possible contrast to the city and should serve as a meeting and getting place or a place to sit or stroll and enjoy nature, and therefore, should contain a minimal number of building and structures. The Riverside Park system Clapp designed is characterized by unbroken lawns dotted with variety of trees, many of which are native to Kansas, with gently curving boulevards on the park's perimeters and paths through the park, a modicum of built structures, all defined by and emphasizing the meandering Little Arkansas river. Clapp wrote of the river: "The great artery of beauty and impress in Wichita is the Little River. Few cities have such an outstanding asset." In addition to being the designer of the Riverside Park system, Clapp was the architect of many of the park's buildings and structures. In 1931, he designed the bathrooms, which he labeled a "Comfort Station," in North Riverside Park next to Park Villa. This Art Deco building with its fine detailing of crushed concrete mixed with grass aggregate and iron grills is a little jewel of a building. As other drawings indicate, Clapp designed the lily pool and the stone-arched bridge in Oak Park, the zoom complex in North Riverside Park and the two large piers with Doric columns at the formal entrance to Sim Park as a memorial to Coler Sim's son, Arthur B Sim. L.W. Clapp was a visionary who practiced civic virtue in its highest and best form. His Riverside Park system is a national treasure and a work of art that is equal of Olmsted's Central Park, his Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and the Chicago boulevard park system and was recognized as such during Clapp's life. To do anything but restore the Riverside Park system would be tantamount to destroying a work of art and would be crime against generations of Wichitans who have enjoyed the Riverside Park system for more than a century. Dr. Pamela D. Kingsbury Architectural Historian (Insert e-mail from Sharon Fearey from Stephen Perry) I appreciate all your work on the park plan. I know how hard it is to do a job as publicly visible as that one is. I would have spoken last night, but it was an emotional day and I didn't feel like I could even put thoughts together rationally. As a whole, the plan has many good features. However, my concern is that the historical aspect of the park is being lost because of the perceived need to follow the trendy, arty and the glitzy images that are being published in all the trade magazines. The City, and especially Riverside neighborhood, does not need to have a park that can be submitted as a splashy magazine article. What we need is a quality design that reflects the history and esthetics of the area. I am very disappointed that the art concepts are sitting the theme for the park, rather than the historical images. Look at the neighborhood. The design, as shown, is as foreign to the neighborhood, and as soon to be dated, as the turquoise towers in downtown Wichita. What ever happened to timeless design? Specifically, the reason for the strolling park design, which was carried through the master plan, was to reflect and remember the old racetrack and the central gardens that were in existence in the early days of the park. Not only have you totally lost the historical location, the shape of the racetrack and the central gardens, you have ignored the reason for the whole idea in the first place. It's like histor6y means nothing. Calling an egg shaped, chat trail a strolling park does not reflect history. I came up with that name, for goodness sake. The historical reference only comes from the shape, the location and ability to interpret history to the users of the park. The concept was to keep the race track oval as seen in old park plans, recreate the central formal gardens, also seen in old photos, and place historical markers along a hard surface walking path that tell the history of the park. It's like that game where you whisper a phrase to someone and it gets passed around the room. When it gets back to you, it has changed so much that it is funny. If it has no historical context, is there a reason for it at all? The whole idea of the "Wall that Binds" ignores the reason for the Riverside Park system in the first place. The reason? The "River that Binds". Not once have you addressed the influence of the river to the park design. The parks are there because of the river. They want designed to be a way for the public to enjoy the natural scenery along the river corridor. Why do we need to spend hard-to-come-by funds on some art concept that in no way relates to the reason for the parks? Why not use that money to dress up the river edges, rebuild the stone river edge or create more opportunities for the public to access the river edges? Are the artists running the design effort, or the landscape architects? Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the arts, but I don't think the current trend of slapping someone's idea of art in everyone's face, and having trendy art concepts rule the design rather than timeless, quality design concepts, is not what Riverside Park needs. Please don't waste the public funds, that we who really care about Riverside Park have worked so hard to get allocated. Be sensible and sensitive in your design development plans. We don't need or want expensive, arty light poles in the plaza area. Keep your design reflective of the character of the neighborhood. What people want and care about is a park system that looks good, has grass instead of knee-high weeds, has some well-maintained floral beds, and is a green, quite place that can be enjoyed in a variety of ways. Everyone should be able to be proud of the park, not just the "art-heads". The public does not want to look at some designer's figment of their imagination. Appropriate, subtle, quality design does not rely or glitz or trends. In every design decision, think about what it will look like and how it will be perceived in 30 – 40 years. You are adding your touch to a park that has been a favorite place of Wichitans for over 100 years and will be around long after we are gone. Please don't blow it by building "improvements" in the manner that is normal these days. This isn't a "throw-away" design. What you put on the ground will need to stand up to the passage of time and trends. Please think about the comments that have been made at the meeting you attended. I have gotten the impression that your first response has been to the defend your design, rather than to listen to what people are actually saying. People give comments because they care about an issue, not because they want to criticize you as a designer. Don't immediately go into a defensive mode. Listen and try to understand what people really want. Sorry to bend your ear for so long. I just have strong feelings for the era that Riverside and the Riverside Park system represents and would like to see Riverside Park keep a strong tie to that era. Third Generation Riversider and Interested Citizen, Stephen Perry, ASLA. LAWING: Board we have been asked to provide written recommendation to the Park Department, Kathy when do they need to have these recommendations? What is the time line on this? MORGAN: I don't know. This request came from Council Member Fearey asked the Parks Department to present this before the board, so I don't know actually. HOETMER: This project has been presented to the Council and approved; the phase we are at right now is the design development. Wilson, Darnell, Mann and their design team have been given the go ahead to just begin develop the design and get into the detail. LAWING: Does this go back to the City Council for final approval before it is to be implemented or has it already gotten all the council approval it needs? HOETMER: As I understand, it was bought to them as a workshop. (Can't hear speaker) LAWING: Council Member Fearey, are you getting this back for deliberation at the council level? FEAREY: Generally we would not, but I felt that it was brought to the council but it had not been taken out to enough groups, so I would imagine that I could request that we add it in. My concern though is that the money is there and we need to start using it to get work done on this park, so I don't want delay to be along the way. I would hope that this board if they had suggestions that Wilson Darnell Mann can take those back, I don't think the City Council is going to be concerned about some of the detail if they decided to change. HOETMER: I would like to make a couple of comments; this development, I want to remove some of the fears if you will of the schematic design development. We are getting ready to develop it, I respect your comments about the plaza, and just to let you know I called Dan Wilson about a week or two after that meeting at Riverside and I told him that I thought that the light were a little too artsy. (Can't hear him on tape). LAWING: As far as the boards recommendations I agree with Council Member Fearey, this is a great asset, we have some money, we need to do what we can to put it in to process. I just don't want to do anything to try to delay; I like Mr. Engstrom I agree with a great portion of what was presented to us in this plan. I do have some concerns. I think we have heard some comments on that from some of the other board members. Particularly pertaining to some of the public art going on in there. If budget issue of course, if money is a huge issue maybe if we could rethink some of those items. Maybe there are some resources that we could apply to a different area of the park to give it some more benefit. WILLENBERG: I think there are some wonderful ideas. I had the opportunity to go to one of the meetings, it wasn't one that was in my section of town, but I was not invited, but I crashed in on it because I was raised in Riverside also and remember playing there. I think it is a disservice to that part to start creating artificial berms and walls and destroying the natural, or what appears to have been pretty much a natural landscape and tureen and try to put in slopes and hills and particularly in the Oak Park section, to put in the pinwheel. I agree that the river is the central focus and to try to add that in. I did try to ask around for a lot of other comments from people who haven't been heard from and felt that I wasn't the only one. I do like the focus that you are doing on Park Villa; you are using a lot of natural materials, which is wonderful. I am open on changing the roadways around. To me Oak Park the greatest thing about it is that you can go in as a child and just imagine anything. I hate to see artwork at the witches house that is the witches house where the pump is. And that was perpetuated by girls from the girl scouts throughout the years. There were hundreds of us out there. There is a giants cave, there is all kind of things, but definitely we need to rework that pond area and the marshlands. It is wonderful that we can do that, but to start putting artificial things particularly in that section even the walkway, you could do cowboy and Indians, you could do Daniel Boone, you could do anything because it was a sand pathway. You could pretend it was a gang trail, I think that is an important part of a park, landscape park or whatever they want to call it. KINGSBURY: Unfortunately this design has completely ignored one of the oldest buildings in Wichita and that is the bathroom, which Mr. Clapp called the Comfort Room Station. It is an art deco building, it was designed by L.W. Clapp, it has some very important construction features in it. There was a man here in town by the name of Benjamin Kreibill; he had a cement company and saved cost by not having to freight in terracotta from Denver or Tulsa or Kansas City. He devised a system whereby he had crushed concrete mixed with aggregate of glass. That is used as some of the decoration on the Comfort Station. It is also the great freeze of Colonel Lindberg flying the Atlantic on the original airport, which is now the Air Museum. And to ignore this building, this gem of a building, the grills are very nice, there are some very nice tile work there and to shunt it off and pretend that it doesn't exist when it is really part and parcel of Park Villa is in my estimation a great mistake. That is where our money should go, for infrastructure like that rather than for plaza and all this, that, and the other. The idea of eliminating the road I think is fine, but we have marvelous features in that park and we have marvelous natural features and we should simply restore them. I would also like to say it is L.W. Clapp, not L.C. Clapp. LAWING: It is my understanding to what Dr. Kingsbury just referred to, either the Park Villa or the Comfort Station, that was outside the scope of work, correct? HOETMER: Park Villa was part of the scope of the work, no, not the building itself. LAWING: The building itself that is what I am talking about. HOETMER: No just the grounds. That is correct. MORGAN: So then would it be appropriate for this board to make a recommendation that you want those two items addressed in this plan and that there be? LAWING: We are getting into that. MORGAN: I didn't mean to rush you along. LAWING: Do you have another comment? HOETMER: I just wanted to state that in the RFP that the city put out we asked our consultants to create a formal area there at Park Villa; that was part of the Master Plan. It was develop back in 92 and in the RP was asked then to develop some type of harbor feature to help kind of bring closure to the structures. I guess what…(asked to approach the podium). EDGINGTON: I am not sure why we are wanting to screen off that building. I think it is the most beautiful building on the whole grounds we should want to show it. HOETMER: In response to that, if you think about an arbor it is a design element that allows you to have some separation. WILLENBERG: We don't want separation. HOETMER: In response to what you are saying, you can still see through it. It will have the ability to look through it, but it still creates an enclosure feature. I can respect what you are saying; I see your point of view. ENDGINGTON: We all have some personal preferences but and I think it is a building that we probably that we want to showcase rather than try to hide. HOETMER: That was in the Master Plan back in 92. ENGSTROM: Certainly Park Villa is the gem of the Park System. I am very upset to learn for the first time today that apparently that the stone wall and concession stands and some of those buildings where the Murdock extention come into Nims are taken out. If we are talking about preserving a historic look, you saw the photograph, we have lost the alligator pit, but the duck pond is in the same location that we have those historical building, they are now being taken out. KINGSBURY: All you have to do is get Clapp's drawings, he tells you this is a copy of the Comfort Station, he tells you, he has the planting delineated here as what should be planted. Why can't we follow these? He also designed Oak Park, he designed the wonderful stone bridge, and he designed the Lilly pool, why can't we go back to those things. That is a great, great park and we need to keep it that way. It is a landscape park, not an amusement park. LAWING: We are asked to comment on this plan, obviously from the feeling from what I get from the discussion we want to make some comments on the plan. I just want to go through my notes, Kathy you might want to start making a list as to some of the things that would go into a letter and I want the rest of the board members to put in anything that they would want to see included also. What I have heard is that we are concerned about the lack of attention placed on the current facilities mainly the Park Villa and the bathroom station. Also concerned with the addition of the public art to the part introductions, specifically and again board members feel free to jump in. I think the humanitarian wall and also the stone hedge piece are probably superfluous to this design and would comment on those. I would like consideration of those and also removal of them from the plan. WILLENBERG: I am not certain why we need to tell people that they have entered into a park and tying it together. I think the river does that. That is personal. EDGINGTON: I like the round a bout. I like that concept, but the lettering reminds me of the lettering on a drive in theatre. I just think it is just a little too much. LAWING: I also again asking for board members input, I also think the proposed lake in Central Riverside Park does not add anything to the overall design and would like to see that reconsidered as well. MORGAN: Do you want to say reconsidered or do you want to recommendation that it be deleted. LAWING: I don't know what our scope of authority is, I think, it doesn't to me it does not add anything to the park. EDGINGTON: I think if anything it distracts from the historic purpose of the park. LAWING: And that is my next comment, generally I think the art in Riverside is the nature, and natural landscapes and I would object to the creation of the berms. I think that is something that is a little maybe a term as Mr. Engstrom use, a little over the top in terms of redesigning the park. I would like to maybe see that comment made. Again, this is with support from my board members. Anything else folks? What else on the list that we heard that we want to put on the comments list? WILLENBERG: I would like to have them revisit that if there is not a way to utilize the current duck pond and structures and concession. EDGINGTON: That bothers me seeing that building go away. WELLENBERG: I do agree that that was a good comment that the park has always been in transition and I tend to be a little against change. LAWING: We have been very critical, Mr. Engler and Mr. Hoetmer but there is also I think a lot of things in that plan that are quite excellent or very good and I am happy to see the renovation and the attention being made to the park. I know that you are focusing on some of the negative right now, but that is kind of our role up here. That is why we are doing that. Again, I just want to make sure that the point is being made, me personally I applaud the efforts that have gone into the developments so far. Again, those are just some of the concerns and we are trying to express those now. WILLENBERG: I think it would be great if we could get the marshland feature back. I do remember that it. EDGINGTON: Kind of along those lines of the positives, again, as you said "to each its own". I think the Run Center is a great idea. I live over there and we fight with the different starting points for different runs and walks and we never really know where one is starting and that is kind of geared toward the River Tennis Center, kind of more of that active area and I think that that is a great location for that. I really complement them on the design of the building, and that is a good thing. LAWING: Another concern I had and it was brought up and I do think we do have to look at the signage issue and make sure those were consistent with the way the fairing program that is currently going on with Old Town District etc. and make sure that we are complimentary to that. HOETMER: Could you define Landscape Park a little more? WILLENBERG: More open landscape, it is more passive, more open spaces of just grassland, with not as much entertaining features or entertainment features. I see that the interactive fountain is a nice feature. It would be a great addition; it would be a great addition. EDGINGTON:I appreciated Dr. Kingsbury's statement about the parks, there are time when we do try to go too far and rather than capitalizing on what we already have we try to improve it too much and you don't see huge Central Park being done, there are times we need to appreciate what we have and maintain it. It is unfortunate that we have seen so many things deteriorate over there. LAWING: Kathy could you draft what you have and e-mail each of us and let us sign off on that? I don't want us bringing up anything that we did not discuss here at the meeting. If there are other concerns that you might have is you want to put those forward, maybe do so as individual citizens and not as a member of this board. Collectively I think that those thoughts kind of capture the discussion that we have had here. Again, I do appreciate Councilman Fearey you bringing this issue not only to our board but to the other Citizen groups as well. I appreciate that, I think that that is a discussion that has to happen, hopefully in the long run we will get something that everyone will be very proud of. HOETMER: You mentioned Central Park quite a few times. In Central Park, there is a configuration of many, many different types of uses. All the way from the pristine landscape of a of which all you see is open fields, to the fact that there is a ball field there, there is a zoo there, there is a castle there, there is a strawberry hill. There are many, many things and of course they have the space for it, but it is all organized systematically and each spot has it's own. It is just something to think about in this sense, Oak Park is more of the natural Park, and it works progressively through the more active park I must admit we are trying to make a lot of people happy with this design. That is very hard to do. This is a try, and I do appreciate your comments. 2. North Linwood Park designation HPC2001-00116, City Council Agenda 10-16-01 3. Edward Michael Kelly Residence, 1711 N. Market, Wichita Register of Historic Places nomination HPC2001-00117, City Council agenda 10-16-01 4. Riverview Apartments, 404-408 Back Bay Blvd., Wichita Register of Historic Places nomination HPC2001- 00118, DAB VI hearing October 1, MAPC Agenda 10-26-01, and City Council Agenda 11-6-01 5. Martini Steak House lighting Meeting Adjourned at 5:10 p.m. MOTION #6 (Lentz: Motioned) (Edgington 2nd) Motion carried unanimously (4-0) Approved WICHITA HISTORIC PRESERVATION BOARD MINUTES 8 OCTOBER 2001 Page 16 of 16 16