Manchester Giving Sixth Avenue Park A Much-Needed Makeover

MANCHESTER, NJ — There was a time, Ken Palmer says, when Manchester's parks were the place to be as a kid. A place to shoot hoops, throw a football or play on the playground before he hurried home at night.

Palmer, Manchester's mayor, wants to bring that back.

To that end, Palmer said, the township is implementing a Park Revitalization Plan.

"The plan is to revitalize one park per year," Palmer said, adding that the first park on the list is the Sixth Avenue Park in Pine Lake Park.

"Growing up in Pine Lake Park, the Sixth Avenue Park was a mainstay for me and my friends," Palmer said. "Whether it was basketball, baseball or football, we always seemed to be playing at the park. The park was within a short bike ride distance so when the street lights came on, I could get home in five minutes."

The parks in town have "been in decline for a myriad of reasons," Palmer said, and changing that has been on his list.

Sixth Avenue Park is in need of a major overhaul, he said, and that work already has begun, with the removal of blacktop that covered part of the field, and, on Monday, the approval by the Township Council for the purchase of new playground equipment for the park.

The contract, with PlayPower LT Farmington of Dallas, Texas, is for an amount not to exceed $100,981.39, according to the resolution.

"We plan to construct a small pavilion so parents can sit in the shade. We are resurfacing the basketball and tennis courts, improving the beach volleyball court and installing an irrigation system so the field will be green and lush," Palmer said. "We want to make this park a place where parents and kids look forward to using."

Palmer said the work is being paid for from the township's Open Space Fund, which is supported through a 1-cent Open Space tax assessed to property owners in the township.

"The Open Space tax yielded approximately $320,000 in revenue" last year, Palmer said, but the majority of it is used to pay off bonds the township used to fund some large purchases of open space along Route 571. Manchester was reimbursed more than $800,000 by the state from New Jersey's Open Space fund for those purchases, he said, due to the efforts of township tax assessor Martin Lynch. The money is specifically earmarked to maintain Manchester's parks and open space, he said.

Palmer said the township also will install cameras at the park to deter vandalism and to be able to protect the property better, and that he would be asking the township's police to patrol it more often to protect it.

"When completed, my hope is to drive by the Sixth Avenue Park and see kids playing football in the fields, toddlers swinging on the playground swings, and parents enjoying some shade under the pavilion," Palmer said.

Other parks will be addressed once Sixth Avenue Park is completed, he said.

Google Earth image of Sixth Avenue Park, Manchester