Plans unveiled for a redesigned Pioneer Park

The final design plans for Pioneer Park are finished.

Now the controversy begins, and residents wonder if the city has enough money to implement the plans, which were approved late last month by the city's Pioneer Park Stakeholders Committee.

Redesigning the park has always been a heated topic, since the locale is steeped in history.

Michael Degroote, spokesman for the Salt Lake Chamber, notes the ground under Pioneer Park might be the greatest archaeological site remaining in Salt Lake City.

"It's one of the few actual places from the pioneer days that has been untouched," Degroote said.

The park was home to an old adobe fort and is the spot where Mormon pioneers first congregated upon entering the Salt Lake Valley. Park historian Russell Dixon said, "If they do anything, I would want them to include plans for archaeology because there are probably remnants of the first fort there."

And the design, by Park City-based Design Workshop, does include some history.

The designs call for four "history rooms" at the park's four corners. The rooms wouldn't be actual structures but landscaped rectangles with statues or monuments depicting various stages of history throughout the park's life.

But beyond the history, the park's design seems to lack a cohesive vision, says Chris Viavant, chair of the Rio Grande Community Council. The design is a hodgepodge of incohesive planning born out of a city process, which tried to include too many groups in the decisionmaking, he said.

"It's the 'let's please everybody to the greatest possible extent' plan," he said.

There will be even more public process as the city plans more public comment for the designs before giving final approval.

Viavant said the city should have included less voices in the design, limiting it to the Rio Grande Community Council, the LDS Church and the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers — the three groups who have always cared about the park — instead of newcomers who just want a say now.

The design includes an 80-by-200-foot dog run right across from Bocci courts. To the east, an interactive playground is planned, and in the middle would be a great lawn where kids can play soccer. That lawn, however, would be bisected by a "decomposed granite" pathway where the city's horse-drawn carriages would take fares on a history tour.

To the north, a walk-up concessions stand with attached restrooms is planned. The park's edges would be be lined with trees, and underneath those trees would be two pathways. One would be be concrete for in-line skating and biking and the other decomposed granite for running and walking.