HAVERHILL — Children, teenagers and adults who play sports and enjoy other recreational activities in three major city parks will no longer have to run home when nature calls.
Haverhill has received $282,064 from the state to build handicapped-accessible bathrooms with "waterless" urinals and to make other improvements to Cashman Field, Swasey Field and Riverside Park.
The money also will be used to buy maintenance sheds for athletic supplies and landscaping equipment at Cashman and Swasey fields, a paved recreation pathway around Swasey Field, a canoe ramp and possibly a fishing dock on Little River behind Cashman Field, and "walking planks" from the new downtown boardwalk behind The Tap to boat docks in the Merrimack River, city officials said.
The money will be distributed to Haverhill over the next two fiscal years," said state Rep. Brian Dempsey, D-Haverhill, who announced the grant this week.
The money is from the same pot from which Haverhill received $400,000 several months ago to buy an abandoned railway bed in the Bradford section of Haverhill that the city hopes to turn into a walking and biking path, Dempsey said.
So-called waterless urinals are becoming common in public restrooms throughout the country because they are cheaper to operate and maintain and better for the environment. The city's proposal to use that technology, combined with building recreational amenities that will link its parks to the Merrimack and Little rivers, were keys to winning the state grant, Dempsey said.
Andrew Herlihy, Mayor James Fiorentini's aide, wrote the grant proposal.
Vincent Ouellette, the city's human services and Recreation Department director, said the tentative plan is to design the parks projects over the next year and start building them in the summer of 2011. Ouellette said Cashman and Swasey fields once had bathrooms, but that they became dilapidated and were removed more than two decades ago.
"We have wanted to improve these parks and add restrooms and other amenities for many years because they are so heavily used, especially by kids," Ouellette said.
Cashman Field is on lower Hilldale Avenue, not far from Lafayette Square. It includes two youth baseball diamonds as well as a skate park and a basketball court, Ouellette said.
Swasey Field is on Blaisdell Street in the All Saints Parish neighborhood. It includes three baseball diamonds, a basketball court and a playground, which the city also is planning to soon renovate with money from another state grant, Ouellette said.
Riverside Park is behind Haverhill Stadium in the city's Riverside section.
Specifically, the state money is from the Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities program, which is part of the Urban Neighborhoods Parks "Return to Relevance" Initiative.
"This grant is an important instrument that allows for improvement of the city's parks and the ongoing development of downtown, and demonstrates the continued support that Gov. Patrick and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles have provided Haverhill," said Dempsey, who noted the city also recently received $1.7 from the state toward construction of a parking garage near the downtown train station next summer.
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