Public Views Lafayette Street Park Plan

CAPE MAY – The conceptual plans for Cape May’s Lafayette Street Park continue to take a more distinct shape. Yet they are fluid enough to benefit from ongoing public comment.
At a public forum Feb. 13, Cape May’s Lafayette Street Park Advisory Committee walked interested members of the public through the conceptual design that has been approved by both the city’s governing body and the local school board. The school board’s participation is critical since some of the land sits either on or directly adjacent to the elementary-school property.
The plan calls for a multipurpose park with an array of amenities that will, in the words of one resident, “make a statement” on behalf of the city. Plans include fields and courts to support basketball, tennis, pickleball and baseball.
Other areas of the park will include an 8-foot-wide bike path, with a bike repair station and rest stop. The dog park will be part of the complex. Council member Shaine Meier said a drinking fountain will have the usual location for humans to rehydrate, along with a dog bowl with water at an appropriate height for canines.
Park benches and a walkway ornamented with an array of trees will separate the baseball diamond from the basketball courts, offering the less athletically inclined a place to enjoy a summer day.
The experience of nature will be enhanced in the last phase of the park which focuses as well on a major educational component to the design. The wooded and wetland areas in the northern end of the park will accommodate nature trails, observation pavilions with scopes for distance viewing and an elevated 8-foot-wide trail that will carry visitors out to and over the protected wetlands. 
A gate in the fence that separates the school from the wetlands area will allow teachers to take advantage of nature’s classroom as students learn about science and the environment. Appropriate signage will carry the educational theme to even the most casual of visitors.
The plan includes 80 new parking spaces in otherwise parking-strapped Cape May. Meier, in his second term, has been advocating for parking in this area since he first ran for council.
Ideas abounded at the forum with one suggestion being to find a way to carry the bike path around the back of the school so as to provide the ability to traverse the park without a bicyclist having to enter busy Lafayette Street.
Another idea floated was the need for a central facility, a focal point for ticket sales or all-around park management, a “ranger station” as one resident called it. The same resident also suggested taking four parking spaces and making at least eight spots for parking golf carts which are growing in use during the summer season in Cape May.
The park’s development will occur in phases. Phase one is completed and includes the soccer field and playground areas adjacent to the school.
Phases two and three will move parallel with Lafayette Street to St. John’s Street and back away from Lafayette to the limits of the park area. Phase four, possibly broken into two parts, will bring the woodlands and wetlands into the complex with the bird trails and elevated walkways.
One frequently expressed concern is entrance and exit by automobile. The plan calls for entry points on Lafayette and St.  John’s, but it showed only one exit point for vehicles onto St. John’s. With 80 available parking spaces and loads of amenities to attract visitors, traffic trying to leave the park, especially after an event of some kind, could be a nightmare. Many in attendance told stories of Lafayette Street in the summer. 
A suggestion that has been heard before surfaced again with advocates arguing that Lafayette Street should be one way into the city, and Washington Street one way going out. The Traffic Advisory Committee is looking at that issue.
The focus of attention is on the next stage of the design. City Engineer Thomas Thornton said it might be helpful to do the complete design for all four phases of the park as a way to facilitate appeals to funding agencies and to support the extensive environmental permitting process that will be necessary with the Army Corp of Engineers and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Phases two, three and four would be construction phases, not design phases, Thornton suggested. Thornton was also quick to note that any decision to design the park at one time or in phases rests with the City Council.
Once that design is in hand, a construction bidding process would follow.  In response to a question, Thornton explained that local public contracts law in New Jersey required the city to accept the lowest responsive bid, making it critically important that the specifications put out to bid reflect as completely as possible the expected result. He said the city has a strong history of getting qualified and responsive contractors through its bid process.
As one resident expressed it, the park will serve as a “gateway to Cape May.”
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.