The Pilla Park redevelopment is moving forward after the Planning Commission approved a new site plan at its meeting Wednesday night.

The site plan includes a new Americans with Disabilities Act ramp, bathroom, hammock grove, shelter area and train-themed playground. The hammock grove will feature permanent poles that visitors can hook their hammocks into.

Joy Rhea, a landscape architect with the developer McClure Engineering, said the plan was made following several public engagement meetings.

“We’re going to basketball games and then community surveys and the numbers of people and responses that we’ve gotten are probably near 400 just from both sessions,” Rhea said. “We feel like we’ve gotten really great feedback.

Parking is a significant aspect of the new development. The new plan proposes resurfacing the existing parking lot with asphalt to make traffic flow better, Rhea said. She also said they want to add four or five parallel parking spots on the west side of the park.

Chairman Grant Martin asked if there were any concerns with on-street parking. Rhea said Main Street Terrace, where the spots would be, is fairly narrow and already has parking on the other side of the street. So, she said the new spots slightly off the street could help alleviate traffic issues.

“If people do choose to park on that side of the street, it’ll kind of become a one-way street,” Rhea said. “So hopefully that provides an area where, you know, if you’re going to park over here, you do it here, where they’re able to get off the street and traffic can still flow easily up and down the street.”

Commissioner Pat Jankowski asked Fire Chief Justin Lee his opinion, and Lee said he likes the idea because it will get cars away from those other spots on the narrow curb.

Plans also include adding new rubber playground surfacing and wood fiber mulch, trash receptacles, light poles, limestone block benches, a water fountain, bike rack and fencing. The playground will be in the south part of the park, and the hammock grove will be further north. Open lawn space will separate the two sections.

The project includes a new sign to the park on the northern end. It will be a “Welcome to Eudora” sign. The existing historic educational Pilla Park sign will be relocated to the southwest side of the park.

McClure Engineering has been working closely with the Parks and Recreation Department for this project. Parks and Recreation Director Sally Pennington said having another sign that matches the one on K-10 will make Pilla Park “a great entrance into the city.”

Martin said he is excited to improve this entrance into Eudora.

“I really like it, you know, this being basically a northern gateway into Eudora,” Martin said. “This is going to be a nice cleanup, if you will, improvement.”

Commissioner Lewis Cox said the project looks neat and he likes it.

City Manager Zack Daniel said the city hasn’t yet taken bids for this project, so plans might change. Everything can still be modified, but new plans will not fall out of compliance with what was approved Wednesday, he said.

City Planner Kyle Kobe said the park’s boundaries are not changing and its use is not intensifying. 

In other business, the commission approved preliminary and final plats for the Cedar Ridge development on the 700 blocks of Cherry, Walnut, and Spruce Streets.

The plans include constructing seven new duplex lots and one tract on the north and west sides of the lots. The tract will likely be dedicated and transferred to the city to add a buffer zone between the residential area and the nearby water treatment plant.

Martin asked if there were concerns about a floodplain bumping into the development, but Kobe said the city floodplain administrator has no concerns.

Resident Robin Starling asked how many homes will be built, and Martin said each lot will have one duplex and two doors, for a total of 14.

Jankowski said he’s happy to see the city reutilizing old lots it had.

“I think, definitely some demand for multi-family,” Jankowski said. “I think that would be a good area for it.”

In its final action, the commission initiated a review of the code for commercial uses of land. Kobe said the current language of the code does not allow for construction of restaurants, businesses and other “fairly standard things that people would be proposing in a commercial district.”

He wants the commission to clean-up the code and add anything that might be missing. No action was taken Wednesday besides the initiation of a review.

“Basically, what we want to do is take a scalpel, rather than a sledgehammer, approach to this,” Kobe said.

He also said if someone wanted to build an office in Eudora, the only place they could explore that option is downtown. They would be unable to put an application in for anywhere else.

“It is not allowed anywhere else,” Kobe said. “That’s a weird thing.”

Martin supported initiating the code review.

“I think anything that we can do to clean up ambiguity is a good thing, especially with the city continuing to grow,” he said. 

Cox said he thinks reviewing the code will be helpful.

Four commissioners were present at Wednesday’s meeting. Vice Chair Josh Harger and Commissioner Aaron Thakker were absent. 

Jankowski asked Daniel when the commission’s vacant seat would be filled, and Daniel said by the City Commission’s meeting in May. He said the city has a couple of names.

Reach reporter Bella Waters at [email protected].