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The Pleasanton City Council voted unanimously last week to approve plans to redesign Lions Wayside and Delucchi parks, including moving the bandstand closer to the Firehouse Arts Center and renovate it to look more like a gazebo in order to match the houses in the surrounding downtown area.
Other improvements included in the approved design plans will be constructing a decomposed granite pathway extending from the restroom at Delucchi Park northward to the sidewalk on Neal Street and adding plants around the restroom to provide “enhanced aesthetics and better visibility for safety and security around that restroom.”
“I’m hoping tonight is potentially the end of a long road of talking about renovating these parks to actually taking the first step to renovating the parks,” city landscape architect Matt Gruber told the dais on Oct. 17.
Back in February, the council voted 4-1 — with Vice Mayor Jack Balch dissenting — to halt the Lions Wayside and Delucchi Park Master Plan update process, which was included as part of the downtown transportation corridor plan.
The master plan for both parks had originally started in 1993 — what followed was a decade of design contracts being approved and several designs being evaluated before the 2014 City Council adopted the original master plan.
Some of the original redesign proposals, which would have cost the city roughly $14 million, included relocating the Kottinger Creek further east, relocating the Chan Henderson Bicentennial Bandstand to be on the west side of the creek and reorienting the bandstand to face toward a large open space on the downtown side of Lions Wayside.
But due to environmental regulatory issues with the original plan, staff had to then spend years designing and updating the conceptual plan before coming up with one in 2021 that met the regulatory requirements.
Staff presented that plan, which staff initially projected to cost between $10 million and $12 million — even though staff said at the time they didn’t have the actual cost estimates — to the council on Feb. 7. That plan was denied by the council majority who agreed that it was too costly and that the designs were ultimately unnecessary.
That’s why staff had brought these new improvements to the council on Oct. 17, which would instead cost the city roughly $1.9 million that would come from the existing budget that the city had allocated toward the overall Lions Wayside and Delucchi parks capital improvement project budget, Gruber said.
Originally, the staff recommended that the council approve the move of the bandstand to the north side of the park next to the Firehouse Arts Center but had also recommended that the bandstand’s new design be more modernized in order to match the aesthetic of the arts center.
But the entire council collectively gave that idea a thumbs down and instead voted to keep the bandstand’s look more traditional to compliment the Victorian-style homes on First and Second streets.
“In regards to the bandstand, I do not like option A either,” Councilmember Valerie Arkin said. “I know it said it ties in more with the firehouse but I think option B is much better with the gazebo that ties in with the historic homes, which are across the street. I think it just looks better.”
There was also a third option that would have had the bandstand reflect the character of downtown Pleasanton Arch, which Councilmember Julie Testa really liked, but did not get any support from the other members of the dais.
A lot of the discussion last week mainly focused on the details of the design concept for the Lions Wayside Park which will see a larger lawn area totaling 26,650 square feet; the addition of 23 proposed trees; additional seating around both parks and the arts center; and a temporary trail connecting to the existing trail next to the Firehouse.
There will also be a dance area constructed in front of the new bandstand location as well as additional picnic areas.
Mayor Karla Brown was the only voice who supported mainly the second overall concept design of the Lions Wayside Park saying that she thought the bandstand would be too close to the street and that there would be more noise coming from the road that would impede the music.
“I read one of our local residents and they expressed concern that this bandstand is going to be so remote, it’s going to be so far away from everything that it’s going to feel awkward,” Brown said.
However, she also recognized how crowded the current bandstand location could be and opted to agree with the rest of the council’s decision to move the bandstand closer to the Firehouse.
At the end the consensus was that the increased lawn area could serve as a way for people to get closer to the music and that the city could look in the future to install some sort of sound system.
That idea of a sound system, which was initially proposed by the Pleasanton Downtown Association among other proposals, is just one of the many other improvements that the council would evaluate as Phase 2 improvements, which wouldn’t be funded with the existing $1.9 million.
Those Phase 2 improvements could also possibly include constructing a playground, a restroom or a lawn with seating to provide more concert viewing areas at Lions Wayside.
The city will also be looking at possibly accommodating the expansion of the farmers market by adding pavers into Delucchi Park; creating a gateway into downtown at First and Neal Streets; and adding a parking lot next to Lions Wayside Park, all as Phase 2 improvements.
Balch told staff that one important thing that he wanted staff to consider looking ahead to the Phase 2 improvements was that he wants more community input from the public and from associations like the PDA on what they would like to see.
He said that mainly because there are some significant cost differences between replacing the icehouse with a restroom, which would cost somewhere between $550,000 to $600,000; the playground, which could cost as much as $400,000; or a lawn space, which would only cost as much as $125,000.
He also said the public should have a say in what comes first, saying that most people would most likely want to see a new parking lot near Lions Wayside.
“We’ve got to come back to the public on Phase 2,” Balch said. “Whether a bathroom, a tot lot, the parking lot, the regional trail, the gateway plaza on Neal Street and the removable bollards so we can connect the two parks … I think all of those should be evaluated as to what Phase two would be.”
“I think Phase 2 is far enough off that we really should go back to our partners, that neighborhood and the community at large to try to figure out what those are,” he added.
Now that staff have the approval of the designs and the approval of the professional services agreement with Callander Associates — a landscape architectural firm based in San Jose — the goal from staff will be to complete the design process sometime in the fall or winter of this year.
After that, construction will be tentatively scheduled to start at the end of the summer 2024 Concerts in the Park series, which will still be held at the parks just like it was this year. Construction is planned for completion before the 2025 concert series begins.
The council also approved the authorization of the city manager to approve agreements up to $25,000 for any additional design services, if deemed necessary in the future.
