CONNEAUT – Mike Smith was not exactly looking for projects to add to the Conneaut Township Park Board of Commissioners’ calendars when he walked into a meeting at Conneaut Public Library.
Once that meeting with the Ohio Department of Development ended, though, Smith was all too happy to present a possibility to his fellow commissioners.
“I went to a meeting with (former Conneaut City Manager) Jim Hockaday (project principal for engineering firm Verdantas),” Smith said. “The Ohio Department of Development was coming to town. They came in, several of them, and they talked about the Ohio Department of Development wanting to put money into projects, and they wanted our input. All of a sudden, this woman, I can’t remember her name, opens up a map and said, ‘Who owns this, Farnham Park?’ I said Conneaut Township Park Township Park owns Farnum Park.”
The Ohio Department of Development representatives asked Smith if the park board was willing to submit a grant proposal.
“She says the ODOD is really looking at water trails in the State of Ohio,” Smith said. “I went back home and wrote a proposal and used Google Maps for gathering some data.”
Smith discovered that, on Conneaut Creek, there’s quite a distance from the Farnham Road Property to the takeout at Old Mill Road.
“The driving distance from the takeout at Old Mill Road to Farham Park is three-and-a-half miles, drive distance,” Smith said. “The water distance is 17.6 miles, because the first thing you do when you leave Farnham Park is go to Kingsville on Conneaut Creek, then it makes a turn and comes back Conneaut by CLYO and it comes clear down to Old Mill Road.”
The Ohio Department of Development accepted Smith’s grant proposal and Conneaut Township Park was awarded approximately $187,000 through the Appalachian Community Grant Program of the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments.
Verdantas was hired as the engineering firm to manage the project.
Verdantas’ Rich Washington opened and read the bids during the meeting.
Four different bids for the project were received from Dynamic Structures General Contractors, Geauga Highway, Koski Construction and Ohio Paving and Construction.
Contract A includes the kayak launch and a gravel path from the parking area on Center Road down to the launch area.
Contract B is to pave the path.
“They would do that stonework exactly the same, except now we’re going to put a layer of asphalt on the top of it,” Smith said.
The Contract A alternate includes a paved parking area while the Contract B alternate includes a paved parking area for the Old Mill Road kayak launch area.
“They’re widening Center Road,” Smith said. “This company is going to widen the road for parking on Center Road and this is for if they paved that widening. Alternate B is hoping that there’ll be a lot of money, sort of put that third thing in at the Old Mill Road existing gravel parking lot. They’ll start paving on the northern end and keep going until they run out of money. That would be a parking area for taking out,” Smith said.
Paving the Old Mill Road parking lot might be a stretch, however.
“Preliminary discussion with Eastgate was I was really dreaming when I put that in there,” Smith said. “We’ll wait to see what the recommendation is from Verdantas.”
The bids for Contract A were all very close with Dynamic Structures coming in lowest at $96,820.54. Geauga Highway’s bid was $100,175, Koski Construction was at $101,177.13 and Ohio Paving and Construction submitted a bid of $101,298.
The lowest bid for the Contract A alternate was submitted by Ohio Paving and Construction at $51,088 with Geauga Highway following at $53,020. Dynamic Structures’ bid was $58,495.49 and Koski Construction was lowest at $59,079.75.
Geauga Highway’s bid of $105,235 was the lowest for Contract B with Dynamic Structures coming close at $105,592.99. Ohio Paving and Construction’s submittal was $111,582 and Koski Construction was at $116,103.13.
The Contract B alternates for Koski Construction, Dynamic Structures and Ohio Paving and Construction were the same as they were for the Project A alternate. Geauga Highway’s bid was $51,606.
Movement will be made on the bids once Verdantas has time to compare them and make a recommendation, most likely at the next meeting of the Conneaut Township Board of Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 6 p.m. at the Township Park garage.
“After he looks over the bids, they’ll go back to Verdantas and they’ll make sure everything is correct,” Smith said.
Once the bids been awarded, Verdantas will post the results.
The Township Park Board of Commissioners has owned the Farnham Road property since just after the end of World War II.
“Bought in, I’d have to, I’d have to go back in my memory bank here, 1947,” Smith said. “I think the original (Conneaut Township) Park is 1926. This is our 100th year. They bought 9.6 acres (at Farnham Road). They bought it for $1,200 after the war, around 1946, if my memory serves me.”
The property looked a lot different in the post-war era than it does today.
“That was open as a park,” Smith said. “Had picnic tables, and people went in the creek. I told this story, and, oh God, the engineering jaws went right to the floor. People used to drive their cars into Conneaut Creek and wash them. That’s historically where this road was before it also went back to the park, which had picnic tables and a ball field.”
At some point in the 1980s, the park became a haven for trouble.
“They hired a bulldozer and they bulldozed that old road out of there so you couldn’t get down in,” Smith said. “Then it grew up. I think (Conneaut City Manager) Nick Sanford told me he thought it was around 1984, something like that. There’s nothing down there.”
The Conneaut Township Park Board of Commissioners hopes to have the project started as early as weather permits in the spring and have the new kayak launch open for use in August.
There are some concerns that a revived park, even if it’s just a kayak launch, will invite some of the unsavory activity that led to the original property’s bulldozing.
“(Completing this project is) a double-edged sword,” Smith said. “Remember how I told you why it was closed? It keeps me up at night.”
People have already used the property as a dumping ground.
“I’ve got a person from the Conneaut Creek Association who says somebody has already started dumping garbage over the guardrail down onto the property,” Smith said.
The kayak launch will allow the Township Park Board of Commissioners to assist in showcasing Conneaut Creek, one of Ohio’s Wild and Scenic Rivers.
“That’s what this is all about,” Smith said.
