Massive turnout for Bowness Park reopening
Posted Feb 7, 2015 3:49 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
After over a year of delay because of natural disasters, Calgarians came out in droves on Saturday for the official reopening of Bowness Park.
The 100-year-old park’s redevelopment is now 75 per cent complete and new features include a tea house, new parking, year-round washrooms and a formal trail along the rivers edge.
Almost 50 per cent of the work had been done when the 2013 flood hit and Manager of Planning and Development for City of Calgary Parks Doug Marter remembers what it was like on scene.
“It was devastating, I came down and there was literally six to eight feet of water covering the entire park,” he said. “We had the parking lots torn up, we had buildings kind of started, you name it and it was just completely covered in water, I had no idea what to expect when the water finally receded.”
“When it did finally go down about a week later and we could actually get in here, we had silt, literally two to three feet of silt covering everything and the mud, water into electrical, some of the work that we had done had been destroyed.”
After picking up the pieces and cleaning, the September snowstorm arrived, damaging trees with tree branches down around the site, delaying construction again.
Marter said to finally get the park open is a major relief.
“For me, this is a really special moment that we’re actually able to say it’s done, we survived, we can actually get it rebuilt and you all come down and enjoy it because that’s what it’s all about,” he said.
Families and friends were greeted with live music as they headed into the park and on the ice to skate, with hot chocolate being served and marshmallows being roasted.
The remaining work, which includes restoring the mini-train and construction of a wading pool is scheduled to be completed next year.
Duncan Meade, Vice-President of the Bowness Community Association, said it’s a new day.
“It’s good now to see that that’s complete, obviously the snowstorm was a little bit of a hindrance, but not too much compared to the flood, so great to see everybody out today and great to see the park back to the way it should be,” he said.
Pushing his young child’s stroller, local resident Cameron Nelson also flashed back to the flood.
“It was horrible,” he said. “We used to come down here all the time and after the floods and the snowstorm and they had to shut the whole park down and really it was a loss to our family for a place that we could come too. And now to have it open again and to have more, it made it worth the wait.”
There are also flood mitigation measures, including armouring the river bank with boulders and rock perms to reduce rising water.
