Festival Park Phase II includes bathrooms, walkways, irrigation and landscaping

Washington’s waterfront Festival Park could be finished later this summer, a city parks and recreation official told the Daily News.

The Washington City Council on Monday accepted the bid for work on the second phase of the project, which includes construction of bathrooms, walkways and landscaping, and irrigation of the area.

“This is going to be a great project when it is finished,” said Parks and Recreation Director Philip Mobley in an interview with the Daily News on Friday.

During Monday’s meeting, the city council was asked to award the contract for the work to the project’s lowest bidder, Stocks & Taylor, a Washington firm.

The bid submitted by Stocks & Taylor is in the amount of $145,750 with an additional $7,500 as a five percent contingency.

The bid was one of six submitted for the work.

The bathrooms, when completed, will be located on the western end of the park and linked to the waterfront by a walkway. Walkways will also link the park’s event stage and picnic shelter to the waterfront.

The Washington Historic Preservation Committee has approved the design of the building that will house the bathrooms with a Certificate of Appropriateness.

The bathrooms “will blend in with what is already downtown,” Mobley said.

In September 2010, the city accepted a $295,125 Parks and Recreation Trust Fund Grant from the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources to help begin the project. The city is providing a matching $295,125 toward the project.

About $33,000 in private donations has been raised for a playground that will be part of the park.

The first phase of the Festival Park project included site preparation, paver drives and walkways in addition to construction of a stage and picnic pavilions.

Several change orders totaling $2,810.12 related to construction projects were also scheduled to be presented to the city council.

Despite the change orders, Festival Park is expected to be completed some $17,000 under budget, according to Mobley.

And work on the park could be completed in late or mid-August, depending on whether sod can be laid this summer for the Great Lawn, Mobley said.

“We may have to do that in the spring of next year to give the roots time to set,” he said.