One of Nanaimo's favourite spots for walking, jogging and swimming could look a little bit different next year.
The City of Nanaimo is finalizing plans for Phase 2 improvements at Westwood Lake Park and is hoping to start on the work as soon as this fall.
Plans were presented to the city's advisory committee on accessibility and inclusiveness at a meeting Wednesday, July 10. Kelsi Hurlbut, principal landscape architect with the Tula Project, introduced some of the proposed Phase 2 improvements to the committee.
"One of the big asks was to increase the beach area, so you'll see a beach area quite significantly increased in area bordered by a seating feature with tiered seating down from a very wide and accessibly created pathway that connects all the trail system around Westwood Lake to the existing washrooms as well as second beach," she said. "That was a primary connection that we wanted to ensure that we focused on making, to complete the loop that everyone is running and cycling and walking and wheeling through every day."
The committee felt one accessible washroom wasn't enough and recommended that city council ask for a report on options to add another.
Michael Lonsdale, senior project manager with the city, was asked if the recommendation would delay the project, and replied in an e-mail to the News Bulletin that that will depend on council's direction. If council wishes to follow the committee's recommendation, staff will "quickly return" with options a week later to try to mitigate potential schedule changes.
"These options will each have different budget and schedule impacts and depending on which option council directs staff to proceed with, we may end up starting construction a bit later than we had planned," he said.
