Christmas gift evolves into dog park
Couple donates $61,000 for a larger facility at Fort Marcy Park
Canines in Santa Fe may soon have a new place, or two, to play.
The Santa Fe City Council next week will consider a resolution to accept a $61,000 donation from part-time city residents Alex Carr and Elvis Duran to complete construction of a dog park on less than a half-acre at Fort Marcy Park. And if all goes well, the recently engaged couple could chip in for another new dog park to be located on Santa Fe’s south side.
“We find Santa Fe to be such a beautiful and magical place,” said Carr in a phone interview from Staten Island, N.Y., where he is senior zookeeper at the Staten Island Zoo. “If this turns out well, we’ll do another dog park on the south side … . We’re definitely looking into that. We want to see how this one works out.”
A condition for accepting the donation is to name the park in honor of the couple’s 5-year-old minature schnauzer, Max. The dog park would be called “Max & Friends Dog Park.”
The city opened a small dog park at Fort Marcy Park last October. But it amounts to not much more than a fenced-in area on the west side of the park south of the tennis courts and is restricted to smaller dogs 35 pounds or lighter. If the donation is accepted by the City Council, the dog park would be expanded to include a separate area for larger dogs. Both spaces would include shade structures, benches and dog agility
equipment.
City Councilor Signe Lindell, a dog lover who has been working to place a dog park at Fort Marcy Park for years, said she’s grateful for the gift.
“Alex and Elvis are a couple of super-nice guys that have a house here. They love it here and wanted to be a part of it,” she said. “When you have space that’s totally unused vacant space, I think this is a wonderful use for it.”
Currently, the city has two dog parks: the Frank S. Ortiz Dog Park northwest of downtown that’s dedicated exclusively to the use of dogs and their owners, and a fenced area at Salvador Perez Park off Alta Vista Street. There are also a set of dog parks run by the Santa Fe Animal Shelter not far from the airport, and with spectacular mountain views, but Lindell said that’s on county property.
Lindell said the small dog park at Fort Marcy is already getting a lot of use.
“You would be astonished to see how many people show up every day and use that park,” she said, adding that dog parks aren’t just for dogs. “One of the great benefits of it is the people who use the park get to know their neighbors.”
She’d love to see a dog park located somewhere on the south side of the city, and is hopeful Carr and Duran will help make that happen.
“That’s one reason why we want this one to turn out great,” she said.
City to kick in $5K
Carr explained that the couple got involved in the dog park when he was looking to buy a Christmas gift for Duran, who hosts the syndicated radio program “Elvis Duran and the Morning Show” from New York City, which airs locally on KLBU “Jam’n 94.7 FM” from 6 to 10 a.m. each weekday.
“Right before Christmas, I was thinking about getting a nice gift to give Elvis, so I contacted Mayor Javier Gonzales and Sig Lindell. I told them I would like to do something in Santa Fe that could be donated in Elvis’ name,” he said. “When I saw the dog park, I thought, well, maybe I’ll donate a bench.”
He said Lindell came back with a couple of other options. By then, Duran had been let in on the gift idea.
“We felt that maybe we could donate something to each other and (Lindell) came up with a proposal,” he said. “We loved everything we were hearing and said, sure, why don’t we come up with the rest of the money to donate to the dog park?”
According to city documents, “The major positive effect of this project would be the creation of (a) new dog park where none currently exists with the expenditure (of) little or no public funds.”
The total investment in the dog park is not to exceed $73,500 during the current fiscal year. In addition to the $61,311 donation from Carr and Duran, the city would kick in an additional $5,000 to build the park.
The city also would allocate $5,000 annually for cleaning and maintaining the dog park. The resolution also directs the city manager to identify a funding source in excess of donated funds to complete construction of the dog park.
“If additional donations are received, they would be used to decrease or eliminate the $5,000 in construction funds from the city,” says the fiscal impact report for the project.
Lindell said additional funding may be needed if the city decides to bring water to the park.
The resolution also calls for the city manager to rally staff “to commence and administer construction of the dog park as soon as practicable following standard city procedures and procurement regulations.”
With most of the funding already donated and a draft of the design in place, construction of the dog park could be completed by the end of the year.
Ideal partnership
Justin Greene, a Santa Fe architect, has been involved in the effort to build a dog park at Fort Marcy Park for several years — decades in dog years, he joked. He has already drafted a design for the park, which he’s contributing to the effort.
“We are currently adjusting the design based on comments from local dog-handling professionals,” he wrote in an email to the Journal. “Our parks are a great asset. This example of a community organized amenity plan is a model for other projects around town.”
Greene helped launch a GoFundMe campaign with the goal of raising $8,000 to improve the dog park at Fort Marcy. So far, 34 donors have contributed more than $3,500, which will be donated to the city, he said.
Greene says the Max & Friends Dog Park could serve as a model for other such projects.
“This project is an ideal public-private partnership,” he said. “Our goal for this project is to prove the concept, and develop more dog parks and community amenities across town.”
They don’t have to be dog parks, he said.
“Music lovers can organize a band-shell or families an upgraded playground,” he said. “Hiking trails or pocket parks all need help and organized campaigns like this can get things moving. The city and the neighborhoods should look for other low-impact, highreward opportunities.”