The nearly $7 million makeover of Brooklyn Heights Park is nearly complete.
The park, set behind Park Elementary and the Brooklyn Library off Ritchie Highway, closed last March for improvements and is set to reopen in May.
The new look was shown to the public last February. Highlights include:
- A dog park with water fountains and shade structures
- Fields for sports like soccer and lacrosse with LED lighting
- An adaptive baseball and softball field with a rubber playing surface
- A basketball court
- A community garden and meditation area, with walking paths, landscaping, benches, and a gazebo
The plan added five parking spots to the park’s lot and leaves open space for a future community center, a different project set to be completed in 2027.
“The park really needed some attention, and the county was looking to both improve the park and use the park as the site for a new community center,” said Bruce Bruchey, Anne Arundel County chief of Planning and Construction for the Department of Recreation and Parks. “The socio-economic conditions of the people that live up there aren’t the best compared to other areas of the county. So, Recreation and Parks, along with other county agencies, have been trying to do some more in the Brooklyn Park community and make some improvements where we could.”
According to Bruchey, the park has been a part of Anne Arundel’s park system for around four decades and was previously home to sports fields, a playground and a community garden. Funding for the $7 million project was first allocated in the fiscal year 2020 budget.
Bruchey said the county took community opinion into consideration while planning park improvements, which inspired ideas like the dog park and the addition of more community garden space.
“We’re also adding a meditation garden, which is something that we don’t have in many of our parks, either, where there’s a quiet area where you can walk into a garden and collect your thoughts, meditate, that’s what it’s for. So, the park has got a little bit of everything,” he said.
The meetings on the project were the county’s first to be bilingual, translated into Spanish, according to Bruchey.
The adaptive baseball field features a level, rubberized material allowing for players in wheelchairs, similar to the one in Lake Waterford Park in Pasadena.
Bruchey said the park needed substantial grading work and the installation of storm water management devices, something the park did not have before.
With only a few months left to go before the park is set to reopen, Bruchey said the work is progressing smoothly and is on track.
“You can start to see the outlines of where the dog park is going to be, and so forth,” he said. “So, for the next two months, it’s … getting the last of the grading work done, getting the trails paved and getting the landscaping in place.”
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