Conneaut Township Park Trustees celebrate concession stand completion

May 11—CONNEAUT — After months of work and years of securing funds, the new concessions stand at Conneaut Township park is finished and ready to serve customers this summer.

The new concessions stand is located near the site of the previous one, adjacent to the pavilion near the beach at the park.

Park Commissioner Danny Sullivan said the initial planning for the project started in 2016 or 2017.

Michael Smith, president of the board of park commissioners, said the new concession stand cost $1.27 million, and construction took a little over a year.

"The bottom line is, we're very pleased with the facility, both the concession stand part of it, which is [equipped] with gas or electricity, whatever the concessioner's is, can be used," he said.

"And the restrooms are top-notch. There are seven unisex restrooms around the perimeter of this building, and each restroom has wall-mounted fixtures."

He said restrooms have toilets, urinals, sinks, baby-changing stations, and fold-down bench.

"One of the reasons we went with unisex is, let's say you have a child that's ... like eight years old [of the opposite sex], and needs help restroom, which restroom do you take?" Smith said. "And the same thing for the elderly, like your parents. So you're bringing your mother here, and it's me. So which side am I going to take her into? So the unisex solves that problem."

The building was built to last at least 50 years, he said.

Sullivan said all of the restrooms are handicapped accessible and ADA-compliant.

Smith said the plumbing in the old concession stand was having issues.

Michelle Taylor, the park's fiscal officer, said the park received $379,000 from a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant, $75,000 from the Ashtabula County Civic Development Corp, and $250,000 from the state capital budget.

The rest of the cost was paid for by the park, Smith said.

"It's about 50 percent grant," he said.

Thursday night's event also celebrated the completion of renovations to the bridge of Kelsey's Run.

The park received a $166,000 community development block grant and a private donation from the family of Ruth DiMare, Smith said.

"Eighty thousand she gave for the bridge project," he said.

The project cost about $415,000, he said.

"They took everything down, they actually etched stone on the end, a number and a letter, took pictures, tore all that down, redid the deck and the bridge, then put those [stones] back in the exact same location that they were, and built those rails up again," Smith said.

He said Conneaut Township Park belongs to the people of Conneaut.

"They passed that permanent improvement levy which was five years ago, it'll be finished this December, collecting taxes. If they wouldn't have passed that permanent improvement levy, because that's the matching money," Smith said. "For all the grants, you have to have matching money, and that's the matching money, was permanent improvement."

The restaurant at the concession stand, named the Beachfront Dunes, is planning to open Memorial Day weekend," he said.

The project added 10 parking spaces around the concession stand, some of which were designated for concessions stand employees, Smith said.

"Sometimes, in the past, on a busy day, they'd be [parking] half-way up this hill to get to work," he said.

Sullivan thanked CT Consultants for their work on engineering and architecture. The commissioners thanked VendRick Construction for their work on the concessions stand, and Union Industrial Contractors for their work on the bridge.