Tarmo Uukkivi, director of operations and protective services for the Town of Huntsville, told council’s general committee on June 29 that the contractor has completed work at Kent Park.
He said Arenes Construction completed the work on May 30, 2022 and the remaining work will now rest with the Town’s Parks Department.
“Remaining Kent Park work includes the installation of park benches, additional “Muskoka Chairs,” as well as planting and placement of additional flowers and greenery, e.g., hanging baskets. Town Parks staff have been working diligently and, as at the date of this report (June 29, 2022), most of the work is complete,” he stated.
He noted that Arenes Construction has since moved on from the Kent Park project and laid the base for the pickleball courts at McCulley Robertson Recreation Park. On June 29, Uukkivi indicated that the company had also started work in Port Sydney to create new pickle ball courts. “Arenes will be moving back and
forth between locations through the remaining stages of work,” he stated.
The council approved design consideration for the McCulley courts involve “removing only as many trees and other greenery as necessary to create the space necessary to build the Pickle Ball courts.” Uukkivi also added in his report that the company had to make some adjustments to the work due to the soil conditions that were found as work began. He said the contractor has been consulting with Town staff as work progresses.
The Port Sydney work and design is being created based on the existing court structure. “Trees and brush were cut and removed over the past year in preparation of the work. The removal of this greenery was necessary to increase airflow and increase exposure to the sun. The air and sun are necessary to help the courts dry rapidly.”
The McCulley Robertson pickleball courts are expected to be completed this month. The Clarke Crescent multi-use courts in Port Sydney are expected to be completed this August.
“Completion dates are tentative only as weather and site conditions could impact the work,” he explained.
UPDATE: In 2020 council approved an amended Kent Park design at an estimated cost of $400,000, down from $500,000. Doppler has reached out to Town staff for the final cost.
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The parkette was good enough but what is done can’t be undone
There are plenty of artist in Huntsville that may have ideas to promote a culture of art in Huntsville step by step but cultures in small town Ontario change slowly. The Pipeman and the closing of the Huntsville branch of The Haliburton School of art are just 2 examples and there are many more Art and Politics make strange bed fellows and unintended consequences are hard to predict. Huntsville May not be ready for Installation Art but I can see a winter ice carving contest May go over well at this time. Huntsville still needs its first public or non profit gallery with an independent curator A similar town in Quebec Baie St Paul has 25 galleries and studios on Main Street and does a roaring business. An open air gallery like the parkette May be a good venue to have an echo ion contest for sculpture in stone, bronze wood fiberglass and other materials including so called found art like driftwood and stone and rock produced by the forces of nature calle scholars art in Asia. If it helps to promote a culture of art that fits the times in Huntsville now the deed is done but it has to be done by a professional curator that has local roots because art and politics make strange bedfellows
Yes, very cool and colourless. I agree a fountain would be nice but better a nice pine tree as someone suggested that would provide shade and could be decorated at Christmas. Maybe as well as a fountain?
Here are some nice pictures before the corner was trashed.
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/council-narrows-in-on-kent-park-redesign/
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/santa-and-mrs-claus-are-coming-to-downtown-huntsville/
My grandson and I spent a happy half hour at Kent park this afternoon. He ran around the open space and climbed on the rocks while I enjoyed a Muskoka chair. As the trees mature it will become an even better place. It is clean and easy to maintain. The rocks give it a Muskoka feel. I like it. It is a significant improvement over the former space.
I commented elsewhere, that I feel aliens were involve with assembling that rocky mass we call Kent Park. I walked down the other morning, just to give it another chance. There was a low moan coming from the area as I approached and I was ready to hear something like “Engage” and see a black vortex punching into the sky. The aliens were leaving!
But it was just a town worker with a power blower. Big time letdown. As is this park.
I don’t think the work is lacking; just everything else.
How can a council and designer, see this area and not feel a sense of awe and respect for his or her surroundings?
Would someone who was born and raised here, or who has come here earlier by choice, not feel that ubiquitous tug of appreciation for the land, the trees and water?
Come election day, might I feel there is the possibility that we can rid ourselves of these ‘aliens’?
Give me, please, a human with a critical eye; a sense of place; a beating heart!
Maybe even “a little bit of soul.”
I am going to add my disappointment in this disaster to everyone else’s so that the numbers of “NO” add up. It is a barren landscape just like the rest of the current construction around town. No one will sit there. Where is all the beautiful Muskoka themed buildings that we used to demand? Now all we’re getting is square block buildings, clear cutting of precious trees and moonscapes. I am truly heartbroken in the direction we are going.
I agree with every comment to date!.. the Group of 7 pushed the virtues of our natural landscape..we chose to trash a piece of natural Muskoka with beautiful mature trees to install a piece of architectural landscape more in tune with downtown Toronto!..????
There is absolutely nothing appealing about the refurbished Kent Park! Whoever signed off on this design should be terminated from their job!
Let’s be honest, the former Kent park was a dump, useless except for parking for staff at the tattoo shop. Remember when Belly Ice Cream had a stall there?
Imagine if someone had the foresight to create a street food encampment there? A beer garden? An artistic space? Something other than stone pavers and over priced slabs of granite. What’s the purpose of this space now? I don’t get it?
This has becone quite typical for the past 15 years, no forethought, no plan, no sense of cutting edge, no radical functionality, just nothing really.
How about an interactive art space? How about a ever changing art installation?
From Doughty, to Aitcheson, to the current unelected mayor whatsherface it’s been an absolute farce.
What’s next, Bob Stone wanting to get rid of food trucks and stalls again?
Sad to say, but upon retirement I look forward to setting sail and bidding adieu to this disaster of a town for good.
Driven past it several times now. I have not seen a single soul using it, not one!
Ugh yup, I havent spoken to one person who likes this new design!
There were amazing, mature trees ther that shldv been incorporated, not ripped out.
A fountain wldv been SO nice too as mentioned by many.
I used to stop and sit in the shade while waiting for some good Thai takeout, cant now, that space is SO uninviting, Crazy hot, no shade…why didnt they at least put up some sails to help breakup the sun until thos puny lil trees grow big enough to provide more??
Ya, in 20yrs it might look bettr but I wont still be here lol
Yet ANOTHER waste of $ while the state of the roads deteriorates…its embarrassing and I wish I cld sue the town for the amount of damage thes roads hav caused my vehicle!
Thanks Huntsville…where theres nowher you can afford to live, nowhere to park and roads that will absolutely DESTROY the alignment on your car!
Shame on the town ,honestly who thinks up these really bad designs. A fountain with a few levels so you can stop and get a drink for your dog would have been nice. And why cut down more trees? Shameful.
I hope people remember this come election time in the fall. We may not be able to change what has already happened, but at least we can change the people who caused this eyesore.
Was much better before they tore it apart !!! Hot and desolate looking !!! I have never seen such destruction of trees as I have seen in Huntsville lately and at a time when they are in desperate need with the weather all “screwed up” !!!
Couldn’t they at least have put a nice 10 ft.-pine tree in the centre? That would have provided some “humanization” of the project and could have been decorated at the holidays. Everything points to a glaring lack of a focal point in the centre.
Whose idea was it to place the massive blocks of granite around? They are barren/ugly and completely dominate the small area. Are they supposed to provide seating? Park benches would have been far less expensive.
A fountain in the centre would have been nice as an alternative–cooling the paving in the July-August tourist season. As it is, it is entirely uninviting. A waste of taxpayer money indeed. Do we really need to pay for fixing what isn’t broken, while our roads are full of potholes?
This is an example of decisions being made by “expert consultants”/unaccountable bureaucracies rather than office-holders responsible to those who are taxed.
It’s too bad. A lot of work was done. There’s too much cement/rock and not enough trees. Low maintenance though.
It’s incomprehensible to me that the design of Kent Park is so outdated as to have ignored some now common effects of climate change, including heavier periods of rainfall and more intense heat. Hardscapes like the main surface used there are a cultural norm of the past in parkettes. Permeable surfaces, for example, alternating paving materials with vegetative material, such as a ground cover like woolly thyme perhaps ( I’m not a landscape expert) would at least reduce the runoff and potential flooding that will occur with even moderate rainfall.
Hot summer days with the sun baking down and reflecting off that surface will be brutal and won’t attract users. I agree with all the comments written so far that Kent Park as it is now is a travesty and should have been designed as a more natural green space. Sad that the spruce tree is gone.The couple of trees planted will take a long time to provide much shade. Hanging flower baskets may look artificially nice, but will not help at all with more serious effects of a hardscape surface.
Suits the whole Council theme of downtown – blah. I am waiting for the art on the boulders festival.
I am very happy with pretty much everything else about the streetscaping project. The town and contractors did a fantastic job. But I have to agree with the other comments: Kent Park is an embarrassment for Huntsville and Muskoka. If the trees grow old, it is possible to see the park being OK in 20 years, maybe. I feel like it could have been so much better. Even just adding more flowers, trees, and benches to what was already there would have been a lot cheaper and a lot nicer. Who knows, maybe it will grow on us.
Kent PARK? Seriously? More like a moonscape! My husband and I watched, day after day, week after week, hoping more green space would materialize. We were excited about our own vision of a lovely fountain in the middle to cool resting shoppers and strollers. Alas, it was not to be. We still look with dropped jaw every time we pass the awful concrete jungle. This was an opportunity to really improve everyone’s experience in Huntsville. Instead, it is an embarrassingly big flop.
It’s only a matter of time until the squad of vandals will trash the park. CCTV cameras would be a useful addition to the park. Looking at the photos of the completed park, I agree that it lacks natures touch, but then there is less for the brainless vandal squad to ruin, so there is an up side.
KENT PARK:
In 1970 Joni Mitchell released a well known song, ‘Big Yellow Taxi.’
“So they paved paradise put up a parking lot.
They took all the trees put ‘em in a tree museum and they charged all the people an arm and a leg just to see ‘em…”
I was looking forward to, and anticipating, a green space. It’s not a parking lot but more a concrete jungle. Muskoka is progressing and growing albeit at the cost of our environment and all that makes Muskoka what it is, or more accurately – what it was. Scary. Disappointing.
Here are some nice pictures before the corner was trashed.
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/council-narrows-in-on-kent-park-redesign/
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/santa-and-mrs-claus-are-coming-to-downtown-huntsville/
Taxpayers paid out hard earned money for this disaster?
Council actually approved this abomination? Seriously?
If the only design consideration was zero maintenance because of zero use, mission accomplished.
The beautiful green space might as well have been turned into yet another parking lot.
At least that would have some use.
It’s sure nothing Huntsville can be proud of!
Just a waste of taxpayer money!
It’s dead! It’s lifeless!
I can see people fighting each other just to sit there in the hot sun??
Waiting for the spray paint artists contribution.
Just another day in Huntsville!
Kent Park is a small example of the scorched earth policies by the District, towns and townships.
Visit any new development to see the same thing on a larger scale.
Disastrous.
Typical.
Toronto protects their trees and green space FAR better than Muskoka.
Many negative comments here:
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/speak-up-huntsville/