What is your vision for the overall plan of upgraded rinks and change facilities at Greenwood Park?
There is amazing potential for community use of the building next to the rink (and swimming pool). Creative and intelligent design could allow for multi-purpose use of the massive, windowless, wasted space occupied by the current change rooms.
What is your vision for this space? Grandparents playing cards, children reading books, singles sharing a warm drink, skaters cozying up for a break? Holiday craft fairs, farmers’ market stalls, resident association meeting space? Community kitchen, school skating program room?
I know that some of you were able to come out and meet on Thursday and view the plans. There were a couple of points that I wanted to make before anything went forward.
I will list them below and please feel free to add your comments and or additions.
A. I feel that the new windows that will be installed in the programming room should be designed to open to allow fresh air into the room. There is mounting evidence that the air inside of buildings is often more contaminated when fresh air is not available.
City RFP
Click to see report.
Multi-Million Dollar Changes to Greenwood Park Recreational Facilities
The following are annotated excerpts and summaries (with some added community-focused comments)
of key components of the City of Toronto’s plan to refurbish and upgrade the facilities at
Greenwood Park. The written and visuals were distributed in the form of a Request for
Proposals (RFP) dated August 23, 2010.
Notes and thoughts from community meeting February 1, 2011 – City Councillor Paula Fletcher, community rink users, Friends of Greenwood Park, city staff present. Consultant from Aecom presented their proposal.
Aecom’s proposal:
To move the hockey rink pad further to the south and east without encroaching into soccer territory
The skating trail will be located between the hockey pad and the existing rink/pool house.
There will be a newly designed kids - play area north of the field house and connected to the proposed skating trail.
The ice compressors will be moved into or connected to the existing rink house.
The zamboni – house or route was not clear. It seems to still be located between the new children’s play area the existing rink/pool house. Read more >>
Message from Netami Stuart, landscape architect responsible for the playground design
-Construction will start after we have two weeks of dry weather. The ground needs to dry up enough for them to get big trucks in to do the work.
-Once construction starts, the playground will be fenced off for five weeks for construction.
-This is one of their first big jobs to start this year.
I suspect that within one week from today, if the weather holds out, you will lose the use of the play ground for five weeks or so. And if those five weeks are really rainy, it may be longer.
FROG is hopeful that we can all enjoy the renovated playground with our families beginning with and during the summer break!
We are also hoping to replace the tired playground equipment, if there is anyone who can assist in this please let us know, all the best from FROG
1. Getting rid of "stadium" lighting, fine. But the park/playground still needs enough lighting to keep it a safe space.
2. Reno of change room building: an open-concept, flexible space would be great. Someplace where people could take a break out of the weather (sun or cold), rendez-vous with friends, eat a snack, etc, but a space that we could also use to run the kids' activities for the park clean-up fests when there's bad weather. Like a lounge, but flexible...
3. Bring back the seasonal skate-park equipment, please! The new infrastructure down in the Beach is great, but a) bikes aren't permitted (I don't know about in-line skaters or scooter riders) and b) the Beach facility isn't our "neighbourhood" park but a "destination." In other words, it isn't friendly for novices or close enough to pop over to for a morning or such.
We’ve set up a modest ‘family corner’ in the Greenwood Park
rink house this season as part of promote a regular drop-in skate Monday mornings 10:30-12:30.
We’ve got:
a few stools/chairs and tabes
supplies for self-serve hot chocolate
bins of donated toys/books
snack support from CELOS (Centre for Local Research into Public Space, www.celos.ca) i.e. muffins, cookies, juice, fruit
A rink side campfire from 11am-1pm made this year’s rink opening extra special at Greenwood Park. Many families and people from the community came out to enjoy the warmth, camaraderie, hot chocolate and marshmallows.