Opposition to Plans to Transform Chillicothe’s Yoctangee Park

The “Appalachian Community Grant Program” is set to change Yoctangee Park drastically in the face of anticipated World Heritage tourism – but some say not for the better.

The plan has been evolving since its big unveiling on May 1st, and the approximately two-and-a-half-year fast-paced plan to add buildings and reconfigure recreational facilities has reached the point where the city has been able to make the first legal contract on the project.

That was when council passed a resolution Monday allowing a contract with a “construction manager at risk,” as I reported in my previous story.

Until then, the drafts of the plan have been shown a few times to officials. Since the funds are passing through the county, the commissioners were given previews before the city was. City officials were given a private presentation on October 22nd, but a citizen says she accidentally learned of the meeting and attended it.

Janet Griffith has spoken to council a few times since then, taking up her role from a generation ago with the nonprofit “Save Yoctangee Park” – where she helped lead an effort that prevented a baseball stadium from being built in the city park.

She says she objects to the current proposed changes, saying the public has been excluded from discussions, though they are the ones who a park should be for.

Griffith’s recurring theme is that a leisure and recreation park like Yoctangee should be mostly greenspace – and that any time a building is added, greenspace is lost forever, like with the 1991 city water treatment facility behind Chillicothe High School.

A group of new buildings and structures have been proposed by American Structurepoint, the contractor that is planning the project.

The last draft I am aware of involves two buildings in front of and to the right of Memorial Armory, linked up with an amphitheater built into the hillside. One building would be a visitors center – possibly with a tower to allow a view of the Scioto Valley over the floodwall – with a separate pavilion that would house the Chillicothe Farmers Market. Memorial Armory would have rentable event space on the upper floor.

Griffith and many others have opposed a roundabout for the intersection of Paint and Water streets at the entrance to the park, though the designers point out that their suggestion would be a smaller urban type of roundabout with the focus on pedestrian safety.

Learn more about those plans in this pair of Scioto Post articles from August 27th:

• Plans for Chillicothe’s Yoctangee Park Evolving Rapidly in Short Timeframe
• Roundabout Still Among Major Yoctangee Park Renovations Being Planned in Chillicothe

Hear most of Griffith’s thoughts in her speech to Chillicothe Council on October 28th in the article on the Scioto Post.

I have worked with Griffith in the past, and I urged her to listen to my articles and videos (she is legally blind) to be sure she understood everything that I have been able to report on the subject.

Griffith spoke again to council November 25th…and then I interviewed her as we walked into Yoctangee Park from Paint Street, and recorded her perspective. Hear her in her own words in the two-part videos in the same article on the Scioto Post.

Kevin Coleman covers local government and culture for the Scioto Post and iHeart Media Southern Ohio. For stories or questions, contact Kevin Coleman or the iHeart Southern Ohio Newsroom.