John Bryan Center area gets upgrades
Yellow Springs adding parking, revamping the basketball courts.
Plans are underway to add parking, upgrade the basketball courts and spruce up the area behind the John Bryan Community Center in the months before Yellow Springs gets inundated with visitors this summer.
The basketball poles are down and the rims are set aside at the courts, where village leaders plan to install 26 new parking spots.
The basketball hoops will be moved east onto what were previously tennis courts, according to a news release from Village Manager Patti Bates.
“Once installed, the old poles will get new backboards and nets,” according to the news release. “We hope to have two sets of hoops, one for teens and adults, one for younger hoopsters.”
A skate park sits behind the courts that can be accessed from the adjacent bike path by a set of wooden steps. Much of the ground beneath the steps has washed out and plans are to replace the wooden steps with concrete ones. Bates said $10,000 has been set aside to install the concrete steps.
Bike path users might have noticed much of the trees and shrubs that line the hillside between the bike path and the Bryan Center are being removed. That area is filled with dead vegetation and invasive species, vil-
lage officials said. It will get new plants native to Ohio, as recommended by the vil- lage tree committee.
The new parking will cost about $2,500. The overall project, which includes the steps, new fencing and gravel, is expected to cost less than $20,000, Bates said. The aim is to install the new basketball courts and concrete steps by mid-April.
Village leaders want to partner with people in the community to raise money to install the next design phase of the skate park.