City officials broke ground on the new library site park on Thursday afternoon and announced it will be named the Memorial Park and Chautauqua Amphitheater.
The park will provide a permanent place for the Farmers Market, a splash pad, amphitheater, pavilion, bathrooms and beautifully landscaped green spaces, according to Mayor John Turner. Construction of the $3.26 million facility will be managed by Milestone Construction. It is set to begin this week and will be completed in spring 2019.
"The park will serve as an entrance marker for our historic downtown and the heart of Siloam Springs," Turner said. "What a wonderful time of celebration for so many people and the organizations that have brought us to this point."
The park is located on the former site of the Siloam Springs Memorial Hospital. It is also the former site of the Chautauqua building, which was constructed in 1885. The Lake Chautauqua movement, which began in western New York, covered education, culture and entertainment, Turner said.
The city board of directors voted to approve the official name for the park and amphitheater at Tuesday's meeting. Other names suggested by the parks advisory board were 'Chautauqua Park," and "Healing Springs Park." All three names have historical significance to Siloam Springs park, however the committee recommended "Memorial Park" in memory of the Chautauqua site, former site of the Siloam Springs Memorial Hospital, the nearby Veterans KIA Memorial Wall and the springs for which the city was named.
Residents were a part of planning the park from the very beginning and attended a series of three public meetings to give feedback on the design, Turner said.
"We want those citizens to know that your feedback led to the final designs that you are going to see here today," he said.
The city board of directors, park advisory committee and city staff put in countless hours to make sure the project truly represents Siloam Springs, Turner said.
Turner thanked the citizens of Siloam Springs for passing the 3/8-cent sales tax for quality of life projects, which helped pay for the park. He also thanked the Walton Family Foundation for it's contribution to the project. The foundation awarded the city a $300,000 Design Excellence Grant in October of 2016, which allowed the city to hire CARBO Landscape Architecture to design the park.
The Design Excellence Project spans Benton and Washington Counties and currently has 11 projects in some phase of completion, according to Jeremy Pate, program officer for the foundation.
"We at the Walton Family Foundation are so pleased to be a part of this and be a partner here with the city of Siloam Springs," said Pate. "This is new for us, our Design Excellence program has been around for a few years, but this is our very first open space project that we funded. It's also our first project that a landscape architect has led out of our pool of nationally and internationally renowned architects and landscape architects."
"As you can tell, this is not a single person or a single entity project," Turner said. "That's one of the things that is going to make this park so special. It will truly be a community park. This park will enable us to host events large and small where we can watch the community gather and take pride in Siloam Springs."
General News on 05/20/2018