North Adams Seeks Funding to Overhaul Brayton Park
The playground at Brayton will also be replaced with newer equipment.
Director of Community Development Larysa Bernstein this week said the city has applied for a Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities grant to overhaul the park and athletic field below Brayton Elementary School and, hopefully, add a tennis court and multi-use track wide enough to accommodate both bikers and walkers.
"We want to make it as inclusive of a park as possible to have something for everyone," she said. "It could use a facelift."
Most recently the city has utilized PARC grants to build the skatepark at Noel Field and PARC funds will also be used toward installing the splash park and other amenities at the downtown complex. Both grants came in at $400,000.
"We have recently received two large grants and they are very competitive grants, but I am hopeful," she said, of receiving a third. "I think we put together a strong application."
The City Council approved the application on June 26.
Bernstein said the basketball court will be redone as well as the softball field, which will also be shifted to accommodate a multi-use field.
"The plan is to shift the softball field that is there and redo it to make it a better practice field," she said. "So when the baseball-softball field is not in use they can have football, lacrosse soccer or whatever else."
The project also includes a parking lot for the field, also commonly referred to has Brayton Park or Brayton Hill Park. Currently, there is no parking and cars often line up along the road that leads to the Northern Berkshire Family YMCA and Brayton Hill Apartments.
The project in its entirety is slated to cost $455,000 and the city is requesting $318,500, or 70 percent of the project, from PARC. The remaining 30 percent ($136,500) will come for the next round of Community Development Block Grant funds. The Noel Field work was done the same way with the city providing the matching funds to the state grant through its CDBG mini-entitlement grant.
The city has also secured CDBG funding to update the playground equipment at the park.
Bernstein said the playground should be complete next year and if all goes well with the PARC and CDBG applications, the entire project would be complete by July 2020.
"It will be a good project for the community and that area," she said. "Especially with the school, YMCA and the housing."
Tags: Brayton, parks & rec, public parks, state grant,
