{"id":27432,"date":"2024-05-29T15:46:45","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T21:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-to-rededicate-two-renovated-city-parks\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:01:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:01:02","slug":"cortez-to-rededicate-two-renovated-city-parks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-to-rededicate-two-renovated-city-parks\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez to rededicate two renovated city parks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cortez
Cortez City Park, where Parks and Recreation Director Dean Palmquist hopes to use part of a GOCO grant to upgrade playground equipment.<\/span>City of Cortez<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

On June 7, Cortez officials will host a rededication of two city parks that were renovated last year.<\/p>\n

Another park will undergo renovations and repairs this summer.<\/p>\n

The city invites all community members to the rededication ceremony, the first of which will take place at 5 p.m. at 372 S. Market St., and the second to take place at 6 p.m. at 601 E. Third St.<\/p>\n

The celebrations will include light refreshments for attendees.<\/p>\n

The Cortez Parks Department and other city staff have been revitalizing and \u201cenhancing\u201d the community\u2019s parks and recreational spaces in an effort to create enjoyable park spaces for all residents and families.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur initial goal and effort from this was to try to reinvigorate these two pocket park sites,\u201d Parks and Recreation Director Creighton Wright told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>. \u201cThey each had a patch of turf and a basketball court, and the one on Third and Harrison also had a community garden. We\u2019re really looking forward to giving the residents on the southern end of Cortez an opportunity to get out and enjoy the parks, and specifically give kids access to a playground.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first playgrounds were added to two of the pocket parks that are located midblock on Third Street between Harrison and Park, and the other is Fourth and Market streets.<\/p>\n

Now that both of these formerly blank spaces have renovated, children can spend time playing and enjoying these 2,500-square-foot playgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether your little ones are climbing, sliding or imagining grand adventures, these playgrounds promise hours of fun,\u201d a city news release said.<\/p>\n

The projects took about two years to complete, and the bid for the work was sent out by the city last summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal was to have it completed by the end of the year (2023), but unfortunately, there wasn\u2019t a single playground manufacturer who could put in a playground that quickly, so we ended up delaying it until this spring,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n

Wright said that it is exciting to see residents enjoy the newly renovated parks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to be able to see our residents out and to see more people using the pocket parks,\u201d Wright said. \u201cCertainly some residents in the close neighborhoods would go over, but now we have so many more reasons to draw folks to those two sites. It\u2019s great, and I wish we could do this in every one of our neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now this summer, the parks department will shift their focus to the west end of South Neighborhood Park, which is the former location of the Montezuma-Cortez High School on Seventh Street.<\/p>\n

This year, only \u201cminor improvements\u201d will be made to the park, as it will be a process for it to be fully renovated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re planning on putting new grass seed in and then fertilizing it to try and really get it growing,\u201d Wright said. \u201cOnce that\u2019s done, probably mid- to late summer, we\u2019ll put in a couple more picnic tables over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The site\u2019s irrigation system has been repaired, and the turf fields are being restored. Picnic tables also will be added as the city slowly begins turning this location into a space that the community can enjoy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the formal development of South Neighborhood Park remains a future goal, these interim enhancements remind us that progress is possible even in small steps. We invite all residents to explore these refreshed spaces, connect with neighbors and create lasting memories,\u201d the city said.<\/p>\n

Moving forward with park improvements, Wright added that they are hoping to receive community feedback for what they would like to see the Parks and Rec Department prioritize over the next 18 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will be completing a master plan project,\u201d Wright said. \u201cThat\u2019s the next big project. I hear from residents all the time who say, \u2018We need a new playground here,\u201d or \u2018We need to add more courts to the pickleball complex\u2019 or \u2018We need to replace the shelter at Centennial Park,\u2019 and we will most likely do some of those in the next several years, but in order for us to get a firm understanding of what our needs are, we need to go through this master planning effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Residents who want to contact the city about possible changes to parks and recreational areas can contact Wright at cwright@cortezco.gov<\/a> or fill out a feedback form on the city\u2019s website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another park will receive renovations this summer <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,21,28,60,29,1982],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-parks"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80052,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27432\/revisions\/80052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27432"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}