Monroe Park renovations set to begin next month

The nonprofit group Monroe Park Conservancy has raised enough funds to begin renovations on Monroe Park in November after nearly two years of fundraising.

The $6 million renovations to the 165-year-old park are set to begin in November, and will include wireless internet, a cafe and bistro, tables and chairs, plaza, police station, ping pong table and a scaled model of the James River.

“I look at this as an urban living room, so you want everyone to feel comfortable using it,” said Alice Massie, president of the Monroe Park Conservancy. “So it shouldn’t be just students or just people who don’t have anywhere to go, it should be families, it should be tourists, it should be people just walking, it should be everybody.”

According to the renovation plan approved by City Council in 2014, the Conservancy will lease Monroe Park from the City of Richmond for 30 years, but the city retains the right to terminate the lease at any time. VCU will assume responsibility for park maintenance.

The city and Conservancy are splitting the cost of renovations. Upkeep will cost a projected additional $1.5 million, but the Conservancy has already begun to raise that money.

Massie said she and others in the conservancy believe the park is need of serious upgrades due to dried-out dirt and a faulty sewage system. Massie said the park has also lost its aesthetic value and a makeover could revitalize the area.
But the upcoming renovations haven’t satisfied everyone — particularly members of the homeless community.

ASWAN, a local homeless advocacy group that has fought the renovations for several years, said changes to the park will displace the homeless who congregate there  daily and severely limit access to other services the park provides.

“Most of the existing infrastructures have restrictions on it that make it hard for broad volunteer bases to engage,” said Jess Izen, an ASWAN member. “Monroe Park is a very open space that people come to because there isn’t as much bureaucracy, so it would be difficult for a lot of those individuals to find somewhere to do what they’re doing.”

Izen said the renovations pose threats that have left many scrambling to find an alternative to Monroe Park for service providers who distribute food, a place to use the bathroom and a community space.

But according to Massie, there is a solution: to connect service providers with those who need them.

Massie said the city’s Department of Social Services will have a 211 phone number where providers can call when they have a service to give and homeless people can call and find out where to get service, shelter or food.

Izen said they are skeptical that homeless people will receive the same service they do now with the 211 number.

“There’s issues of access and having a regular around-the-clock spot that everyone is aware of. Including people coming from out of town to offer services,” Izen said. “Are they going to connect people that are sharing food in an unpermitted way in a sanctioned space? Because it seems to me like it’s going to reduce the amount of services offered.”

Instead, Izen is working with service providers to relocate to Abner Clay Park in Jackson Ward, although the location doesn’t have bathrooms and the amount of space that Monroe Park does.

“There are services that you can only get here (Monroe Park) so just because you can access other city services doesn’t mean that’s dealing with the gap that’s being created.”

That gap is one that Massie said she thinks can’t ever be completely fixed.

“ASWAN does have a point, but I think where ASWAN misses is, you can only ask for so much for free and they’re asking for a lot of things for free,” Massie said.

Fadel Allassan, News Editor 

Fadel is a junior political science major. He is fluent in English, French and Sarcasm, and he probably doesn’t like you. Fadel enjoys writing about local, regional and national politics and making people drive him to Cook-Out. // Facebook | LinkedIn
allassanfg@commonwealthtimes.org