ASHLAND NEIGHBORHOOD
Ashland Neighborhood Park:
near Thompson Road and Five Points Road
Community Partner: Ashland Homeowners Association
Project Leader: Angela Smitman
Date: 2005 primary construction, with additions in 2006, 2007, and 2008.
As with many newer subdivisions, the developer of Ashland set aside land for a community park, but did not build any park facilities, just provided a big blank grassy space. Keep Indianapolis Beautiful met with neighborhood representatives to determine the needs of the families, and a Design Charrette was held with the Indiana Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, who donated their time to provide the environmentally friendly and beautiful design.
The main park area (about ¾ of an acre, larger than most parks KIB creates) is a naturalistic area for community gatherings, with no permanent structures, just lots of landscaping to welcome residents to relax and gather. On June 10th, 2005, over 60 volunteers built an entrance patio and a stepping stone walk leading to a future overlook at the pond. Large boulders and many trees ring the site, with the center being left open for neighborhood gatherings.
Since this area abuts one of three ponds in the neighborhood, a water feature / walking stream was built that will help filter and aerate the pond as well as create a fun feature for adults and children to enjoy. The water feature was built by Cool Ponds, a professional company, in August 2005. This will have a great environmental benefit to the community, as well as looking pretty. Work on everything continued over the summers of 2005 and 2006, with 6-12 neighbors working every other Saturday to finish up, bringing the total number of unique volunteers to over 100.
This park has brought together neighbors who only knew each other as "the blond in the blue honda". They now know names, children, dogs, and friends and relatives. The neighborhood association has a weekly pizza party during the summer in this formerly vacant space, complete with rubber ducky races in the stream. The funniest part of everyone getting used to having a park they could use was teaching the parents that the stream and large rocks were put there for the kids to use and play in and on, not to be told to stay away from.
