Have you noticed anything different about Southside Park lately?

You may have seen the signs or the fencing around the lake and wondered what exactly is being changed in Southside Park and why.

It started years ago with a meeting in the community. According to Hindolo Brima spokesman for the Department of Parks and Recreation, "[The Department of Parks and Recreation] hold periodic meetings within the community and usually send out invites to people in that [surrounding] neighborhood, saying 'Come in, we're remaster-planning this park and we want to know what you want to see at this park.'" 

Brima stresses the importance of engaging the community on these remodeling projects because of the changing demographics that sometimes go unnoticed. "If the demographics favor older people they may say 'We don't want to have basketball courts, we don't want to have a skate park,' because they don't want younger people there. If the demographics favor younger people they may want some of those kind of things."

The main goal of the Southside Park Lake Master Plan, according to Gary Hyden, Supervising Landscape Architect, "[was] to reinvigorate this space... This is basically a beautification project - creating better amenities, updating some handicap accessibility - and just making it a nice place to be."

Erosion prevention is another focus of the renovation - the Department of Parks and Recreation has restored the lake banks adding native trees, shrubs, ground covers and grasses. There is a 90-day period where the City waits to see if the plants take and everything has been done right before moving forward

There are three phases to the Southside Park Lake Master Plan with a projected cost of $594,473. 

Hyden says these kinds of projects are broken up into phases partially because of funding. "The upfront end of obtaining funding to build these things is the trouble - always."  Phase 3 will begin early February of 2009 as it waits for the rest of the funding to become available, and the whole project is expected to be completed by late summer.

Other parks will soon be getting makeovers also, the next one being Burberry Community Park in Natomas. The Department of Parks and Recreation created a Sustainability Master Plan and, Hyden says, "One of the goals of this plan is to develop a certain amount of each park as natural areas - [meaning] something that could grow with very little water and have some kind of a habitat value but not take a lot of water and maintenance." 

He adds, "The entire department has been moving towards making sure that we have these wilderness type areas and natural plant areas that are drought tolerant and have a good root system."

Park-goers will get to enjoy three new piers - to fish on, lounge on, etc., two new lawn areas for picnicking, reading and a new tubular steel fence which will stand three feet tall around the lake - making it feel less like a barrier and more like decoration.

Anxious to get to Southside Park and frolic among the new amenities? You'll have to wait until next year before they will be available - for now you can ogle and admire the changes from behind the fence.

Have you seen these changes? Is there anything you're especially looking forward to? Any other parks you would like to see renovated? Please comment below.