Boulevard Park Out of the Woods?

To Dan Lorentz and Allen Stovall, Boulevard Woods could be a near perfect neighborhood park. It's conveniently located, at the intersection of Boulevard and Barber, it has varied terrain and it's on land the county already owns.

Walking around the 2.3 acres with them, you can easily see how a bowl-like area would make a great place for an amphitheatre. Above a wall behind the bowl is the only flat area, where seeding an upper lawn would give little children a place to place--with parental supervision. City crews have been mowing this area for years, the two men say.

On site also are a 60-foot-deep, hand-dug well, now blocked, a stone wall and a hitching post, all of which speak to the land's agricultural history. The biggest part of it was deeded to the city more than 40 years ago.

"This isn't your typical green, grassy park," Stovall says. He's a professor in the UGA School of Environmental Design, but he's not the only neighborhood resident interested in the park--there is widespread support for it.

 Last October, volunteers, coordinated by , piled brush high and deep on a work day. Volunteers have cleaned out invasive plants, poison ivy and dead trees and have created a trail system that threads through the brushy area.

One trail leads to the back edge of the property. From there, you can see a creek running behind houses on Pulaski Heights and a train that's stopped on the tracks near Barber Street. The sweep of the view has an open, Western feel.

Early projections for creating the park range from $12,000 to $25,000. Lorentz believes using discarded materials would work well in most places except the overlook, where sound timbers are needed.

"I think we will have a lot of volunteers involved in building this park," Lorentz says. "There are lots of builders in the neighborhood as well."

The Athens Land Trust will administer any donations made to the park, meaning that these will be tax-deductible. Fund-raising will start when Athens Clarke County officials give the project the go-ahead.

That may take longer than anticipated.

Pam Reidy, head of ACC Leisure Services, said at the ACC Mayor and Commission's work session last week that the county believes money should go for keeping up existing parks, and that any new parks should be large, multi-use ones, accessible to all, on the edge of the county.

The ACC Commissioners who represent the Boulevard neighborhood, Kelly Girtz and Jared Bailey, have both said they are in favor of the park being created. And Mayor Denson has asked Leisure Services to review the proposal for Bouevard Woods.