City breaks ground on park honoring Watkins
The vision former City Manager David Watkins had for what was a dilapidated hotel fewer than three years ago came into sharper focus Friday with the groundbreaking of the David F. Watkins Memorial Tunnel Park.
Jean Wallace, the city’s parks and trails director, concluded Friday’s ceremony by noting that ground will be broken in earnest next week when the contractor begins building a retaining wall that will stabilize the banks of the Park Avenue tributary of Hot Springs Creek. It runs through the property at 811 Park Ave., the former site of the Kloss Motel.
The city is using $63,000 to build the Park Avenue side of the wall and amphitheater from the $367,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocated to it in 2016.
It plans on using $38,938 to build the Magnolia Street side of the wall and amphitheater and an Americans with Disabilities-accessible ramp from the $389,355 HUD announced Wednesday as the city’s 2017 allocation. That money will be coupled with the $20,000 check the Park Avenue Community Association presented the city at Friday’s ceremony.
Deputy City Manager Bill Burrough said the fact the city is memorializing Watkins with a park shows the abiding legacy he left during his short time at City Hall. He died unexpectedly on Aug. 17, 2015, after suffering severe injuries from a fall in his home. Watkins was hired in 2012.
Burrough said the park is a fitting tribute to his friend and mentor, whom Burrough said had an “affinity” for the Park Avenue area. He said Watkins contributed to many of the improvements that have made Park Avenue a sought-after place to live and work.
“We’re naming a park after him,” Burrough said during the ceremony. “That’s never been done for a city manager here in Hot Springs. He was infectious. People loved him. People sought him out. They wanted to talk to him. They wanted to be with him.
“For some of us, David Watkins will never be completely gone. He’s always going to be here with us. There’s not a day that goes by I don’t think about him. People that didn’t know him can see his name now and know what’s he done for the city of Hot Springs.”
District 1 Justice of the Peace Dave Reagan said the park marks another milestone in the area’s progression from one of the city’s most blighted areas to
one of its most vital. He said Watkins noted its potential during a PACA meeting, telling members of the neighborhood association the multiplying effect a park could have on the area.
“He said you’d be surprised what would happen when you transform a vacant lot along the avenue into a green space and just beautify it a little bit,” Reagan said.
PACA President Angie Ezekiel said neighborhood residents decided to take Watkins’ idea further.
“The green space with a cool creek running through the middle for a neighborhood to enjoy turned into an amphitheater and splash pad, a playground and a hill for kids to roll down and be kids,” she said.
Wallace said the Park combines Watkins’ commitment to green infrastructure and community involvement. Two weeks before he died, an archway constructed over the below-ground creek buckled under the weight of a grader spreading topsoil. The city decided to leave the creek exposed, making the property a flood-mitigation tool for collecting stormwater that would otherwise flow downtown.
The Sunrise Rotary Club has donated a bike rack, and the Hot Springs Civitan Club is raising money for playground equipment. PACA and other community groups have also raised money for the park.
“It takes a community to build a park like this and turn a once blighted property into a state-of-the-art neighborhood park that will ultimately help alleviate downtown flooding,” Wallace said.
The city purchased the property for $35,000 in April 2014 and demolished the hotel later that year.