HOPE – After the Hope Town Square was closed for an extensive $437,500 renovation last July, residents were promised the park would reopen in the spring.
Nine months later, the town council is still not ready to select a date when the town square – one of the community’s most popular tourism attractions – will reopen.
While council member Clyde Compton made a motion Tuesday to reopen the park on April 1, his motion died for a lack of a second.
Compton says keeping the park closed as trees and flowers blossom in April will cost retailers and restaurants in downtown Hope a substantial amount in sales.
Improvements to the park include the replacement of 43 streetlights with black posts and globes that utilize LED lights. Concrete pathways have been installed, as well as specially-designed park benches and receptacles. In addition, new roofs have been placed on both the shelterhouse and bandstand.
Instead of an April opening, most of the council indicated they prefer to wait to ensure newly-sown areas of the park remain off-limits to allow new grass to grow and strengthen, member Ohmer Miller said.
For more on this story, see Monday’s Republic.
