After several months of construction, the Creston Community Park is now safe to access.
Tanya Wall, the Creston Valley Services committee chair and electoral Area B director welcomes people to use the park and congratulates the contractors and construction crews for working diligently through the fall to get the park completed to this point.
“The park is still in its early stages, so please keep to the pathways and obey the signs and restricted areas,” said Wall. “We need to help the park mature and grow and let the landscaped areas take root through the winter and next spring. We want the park to be the best it can be for the grand opening in the spring.”
The parts of the park that are now open are the playground and slope slide, the skate park, the accessible pathway, and the parking lot.
Features that are still under development are the pickleball courts, sport court, viewpoint, beach volleyball courts, horseshoe pits and some additional landscaping and planted areas. These facilities are nearing completion and will be completed in the winter and spring, weather permitting.
“We are calling this a “soft opening,” said Randy Fediuk, manager of recreation at the CDCC. “While the park is open, there are several areas that have been seeded and planted this fall. Park users are asked to keep out of these newly seeded and landscaped areas and keep to the paved pathways in the park. The plan for this winter is to keep the main accessible pathway open and maintained through the winter. The pathway goes from the corner of Hillside St. and 20th Ave. N., through the park, loops back to the lower parking lot and then leads to the main entrances at the front of the complex,” said Fediuk
During the soft opening, there will be some additional construction work periodically throughout the winter and spring.
“Please keep yourself and your children a safe distance from construction activities when they are happening,” said Feduik.
The secondary pathways and staircases will be signed and closed off for the season. These pathways will not be maintained for the winter and will reopen in the spring.
Active use of the park features is permitted from 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Park users and the public are reminded not to use the park features when it is snow-covered, wet, icy, or slippery as this can be hazardous.
A community celebration is being planned to celebrate the park completion in June 2020.
Updates on the projected are available on the RDCK website at www.rdck.ca/CrestonCommunityPark.
The Creston Community Park upgrades project was formally announced in March 2018 and is being funded through the Federal Gas Tax Fund, administered by the Union of BC Municipalities in Partnership with the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia, with additional funding provided the Columbia Basin Trust.