Fayetteville's outdoor recreation offerings continue to grow. Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis has more about a park that officially reopened last week after about three years of improvements.
"Thank you all so much for being here today as we celebrate the completion of improvements to Bryce Davis Park. We're so excited for the great weather and to officially open, reopen the park for all of you. This park is an example of how a park system grows with a community."
Bryce Davis Park, named after the original owner and developer, is a roughly 26-acre park on Fayetteville's west side. Parks and Recreation Director Alison Jumper says it began as a neighborhood park when the city acquired 9.2 acres of land in the late 1980s.
The park grew with the city and in the mid-2000s gained an additional 17 acres and added a dog park, pond, connecting trails and picnic areas.
"What we are celebrating today is a direct result of our park system master plan. Through community input, that plan identified several priorities, one of which was investing in and improving our existing parks."
Zach Foster is a park planner for the city. He oversaw the improvements to Bryce Davis and says he leaned on the community for guidance throughout the process.
"We received incredible feedback from the community during the master planning process. When we consolidated all the comments we received through our two public meetings into or through our online surveys, the requested improvements fell into three categories."
Fayetteville residents wanted more things to do at Bryce Davis, more accessible ways to enjoy them and above it all, more shade. These three categories touched on the three existing amenities: a playground, the pavilion overlooking the park's wetland and the Iams Dog Park. Well, these three amenities and the trails connecting them.
Starting with accessibility, a clear barrier to entry at the dog park was the absence of paved areas, as in the dog park itself. Foster and his team added a paved entryway and seating at the dog park. They also added a ramp to the wetland pavilion, barrier-free entry to the playground equipment and the city's first saucer or disc swing to the swing set.
"These disc swings are great because they not only designed for inclusive play, but they can engage four to six children at once."
And then it's hard to ignore their solution for shade. A massive 2,100-square-foot fabric shade sail now hangs above the playground. Now, when you combine it with two pavilions they built near the dog park, people can now enjoy roughly 3,000 square feet of shade.
Foster says the sail is definitely the largest of its kind in Northwest Arkansas, and possibly on this side of the Mississippi.
"Whenever we drew it up, we didn't know if we'd actually be able to do something this big. And our contractor at ACS Playgrounds, Rob Green, was able to get it done for us. And so it's, that large one itself is around 2,100 square foot.
"And one of the important things with this is that it has a quick-release thing on it that helps you whenever, if we know we're getting a big snow or ice or something like that, we need to take this shade sail down because or else it'll just hold the weight and then break or tear or sit down on top of the equipment. Not be good for it.
"So with this quick release that was installed on it, two of our park staff members can dismantle the whole thing within an hour to two hours and just have a ladder and then some tools and they can put it up in that same amount of time."
And speaking of water, dealing with its flow through the park is an ongoing process for Foster. However, it is also directly related to the planner's favorite aspect of Bryce Davis.
"So the wetland pavilion, a lot of people don't know this, but the former dean of landscape architecture, Mark Boyer, and his students designed that pavilion. And it was built shortly after. And so being from a landscape architecture background and school and being under Mark, it was really awesome to get to work on this.
"So but what we did was we extended that decking, took it down two steps to where it's right at the water level where that it has a managed water level at the wetlands. So if it gets too much, it goes over a dam, but just getting to interact with that really specific environment like that biome, if you will, of different bugs and plants and frogs and everything else. I know my boy loves it. And so getting to be that much closer, it's sometimes the little things that make a big improvement."
The landscape apparently favors the wetland as well. Foster says that improving the drainage at the dog park was a consistent request from the public.
"Whenever we get a heavy rain, that water just comes straight across and it sits on that property. And because the water table is so high around here, it's hard for it to escape. So we had to revise the French drain plan a few times to make sure that we're capturing as much water as we could. And then add some more grading features and some of those grading, if you came up today, some of them are still ongoing. So there's more things that are coming on.
"Water is, it has a mind of its own. And when we designed it, it wasn't, we weren't getting a lot of rain. And then as soon as we built it, we got all of the rain. And then it was like, 'OK, now we have to repair it.' And now we repaired it and we haven't gotten to rain again. So it's, it'll be an ongoing thing."
The park is officially reopened, but the city will continue to fine-tune the drainage. Families were already there spending time on the new playground. Mara Caldwell and her son swung on the new swings and read together during the ribbon-cutting. Caldwell says they live near the park.
"Do you know what is so funny? We haven't been here in several years. And so we just made a split-second decision. 'Let's go down.' We used to call it the old, new old new playground. And it's so nice."
She says that she appreciates the ground cover that the city installed under the equipment, and looks forward to water returning to the wetland and pond.
"Actually, we brought bread for the ducks because we used to feed the ducks here all the time, and it's all dry because it's been so dry. So once it rains, we will come back with more bread."
There was a small stream of water flowing through the park's creek. However, we'll probably need sustained precipitation to get the wetland pond deep enough for waterfowl. But even though the ducks weren't there, the Friends of Fayetteville Parks were and would also appreciate some bread, so to speak.
"Our goal is to support our park system and park structure any way we can. We're a fairly new organization, and one of our earliest goals that we've succeeded is making sure that every kid in Fayetteville can attend one of the parks and recreation camps or sports leagues."
That's Steve Sheely. He's the president of Friends of Fayetteville Parks. They gather funds for scholarships so any kid, regardless of their ability to pay, can play in municipal league sports and beyond.
Sheely says he's the father of three boys who all played soccer and even helped coach their team. He's seen the impact that youth sports or organizations can have firsthand and wants every kid to have that opportunity.
"Besides the health benefits of just running around on a Saturday morning, kicking a ball at Kessler or Lewis, just having their uniforms and going to practices and learning about how a coach works and how to play with others on a team. But that's just, that's priceless."
Sheely says he wants the community to get involved with their mission, just like they've been involved with the development of Bryce Davis Park. Park planner Zach Foster emphasizes that hearing from Fayetteville residents is his favorite part of the job.
"I love it when people call in. This sounds cliche, but I really do. People call in and say, 'Hey, I live in this neighborhood by this park and I haven't seen any improvements happening.' And sometimes they're not even on our radar.
"We have 50-something parks, plus or minus, your trails, trail properties and your environmental preserve properties. We have a lot of property to manage. So I personally rely on hearing feedback from the public."
If you have a recommendation, request or question for the Fayetteville Parks and Rec team, you can reach them at 479-444-3471. That's 479-444-3471. You can also email Zach Foster directly at zfoster@fayetteville-ar.gov.
You can also find more about the Friends of Fayetteville Parks, or support them, at fofpar.org.
Bryce Davis Park is one of three Fayetteville parks that will open or reopen this fall. Stay tuned to Ozarks at Large to hear more about what's next.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
