Bob Fenwick sat on a bench in front of McIntire Park’s softball fields. “This is such a beautiful place,” he says, pointing to the trees that stretch into the horizon. “It’s the Central Park of Charlottesville.” Fenwick is the founder of Savemcintire.com, a website focused on combatting City Council’s decision to “get rid of the ball fields,” at McIntire Park to give space to a YMCA facility. He is also a member of the McIntire Park Preservation Committee, whose initial focus is to “galvanize city sentiment to preserve McIntire Park in its present configuration,” and to try to reverse the city’s decision to open the park to development.
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The city and the YMCA were set on the location of the facility in McIntire Park, but opposition about lighting Darden Towe has re-raised the question. |
The controversy that surrounds the site has reached a breaking point.
In December 2007, with a 3-2 vote, Council approved the ground lease for the YMCA to construct its facility within the park. Under the terms of the agreement, the YMCA would lease the area for $1 per year for the next 40 years.
The decision was contingent upon the adoption of a community-driven master plan for the park that studied and delineated the exact boundaries of the lease. But residents say they had no chance to voice their opinion. “None of the people involved in coaching and managing teams had any notice of input. None of them,” says Fenwick. “It was a total surprise.”
In May, the city adopted the new master plan. According to the city staff report, two softball fields would be converted into a single rectangular field.
The city staff’s recommendation for maintaining the level of service for softball enthusiasts was twofold: lighting the Charlottesville High School softball fields and those at Darden Towe Park. County residents vocally opposed the measure, which forced the Board of Supervisors to defer its decision to light Darden Towe until the YMCA/McIntire Park controversy is resolved.
Kurt Krueger, chairman of the YMCA Board, says that they had considered alternative sites for the YMCA at Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC), the Jefferson School and the city vehicle storage lot behind Brown’s Cleaners, among others. None of them satisfied the Board’s intent to have a facility near Charlottesville High School. Krueger says the Board understood the softball frustration: “We want to be good citizens and agreed to take that picnic shelter side” opposite the fields. Ultimately, it’s the city’s “desire to redesign the parking that’s driving the softball fields away,” says Krueger, who contends that there is an alternative design that would avoid totaling the fields, “and we gave it to them,” he says.
But Mike Svetz, director of the city’s department of parks and recreation, maintains that the design of the YMCA will drive any future development of the master plan.
“If they reduce the footprint within the ground lease area,” he wrote in an e-mail, the city would be very responsive to go back to the design stages, “and we, in turn, would again engage the community.” But, he writes, parking and road improvements will result in an area with a “less flat” surface suitable for a multipurpose, rectangular field.
Krueger says the $15 million facility will mostly be paid for by private donations. The county has agreed to contribute $2 million. Because the city requested a six-lane competitive pool for the Charlottesville High School swim team, it is expected to contribute $1.25 million. Another $2 million came from the YMCA board and $3 million from private donors. Krueger hopes the county will contribute an additional $1.25 million for the competitive pool, leaving about $5.5 million still to be raised with private donations.
“Frankly, being involved in the controversy that surrounds the softball fields and the Darden Towe lighting” is hurting fund raising, he says.
“If the city will make it impossible to go forward, we’ll have to go to PVCC if it’s still available,” says Krueger. “But our board is committed to serve the underprivileged and that’s why we want to be [at McIntire Park].”
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