More Upgrades Planned for Woonasquatucket Adventure Park

By: Tim Studebaker

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) – Big plans are in the works once again for the Woonasquatucket Adventure Park on the west side of Providence.

Providence Parks Department Superintendent Wendy Nilsson says, “To be able to ride your bike through there and stop and have a picnic or do some of these activities, or just sit and watch is really incredible.”

The park, on a former brownfield site, is just a few months old.  Features include a parkour area, a pump track, and a multi-use trail system.

Nilsson says, “Oh my goodness.  It’s amazing.  It’s amazing.  We have so many things that are happening there, just organic, in terms of meet-up groups for biking, for parkour.  We’ve had the skateboarding community involved.”

They also installed environmental features to help prevent pollution from storm water runoff.

Nilsson says, “The area was a wetland.  It was a former brownfield site.  And it was also on a flood plain.  So there were a lot of design challenges there.”

Now, the city has received a second round of funding through grants, the city, and the state.  They’ll use the funding to transform even more of that area, like a vacant, fenced off lot along Barbara Street where people have been illegally dumping trash.

Nilsson says, “Phase II would be to make the Barbara Street entrance much more appealing, attractive, a lot more accessibility to the neighborhood, remove all that blighted infrastructure, replace it with a really nice pavilion.”

Phase II would also include another parkour area and a pump track for beginners.  Nilsson says they hope to wrap up the planning phase and start construction by the fall.

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