FAYETTEVILLE -- Work crews are busy constructing what will soon be Fayetteville's newest park.
When finished, Canal Landing Park will be an 18 acre oasis. Highlights of the park include a fitness trail with six stops along Limestone Creek, a gazebo for concerts, a dog park, green space, restrooms, a new parking lot, and a state of the art playground.
Fayetteville Mayor Mark Olson says the new park will help transform the lower part of the village. "Right now there are parks all throughout the village, but the lower section of the village didn't really have an area they could go to and now they are going to have an area to go to," he says.
The park is located on what used to be a brownfield, at the site of a former State Department of Transportation garage and recreation facility. Grants from the Environmental Protection Fund helped pay for most of the cleanup. Even after the park was cleaned up, it wasn't until another grant from the New York State Office of Parks and Preservation came through that the plan to build the park was approved.
Mayor Olson says the creation of the park has been a long process that has taken cooperation and patience.
"I've literally been the fifth mayor that's worked on it. So over 30 years of working with the state to get this to become a park," he says.
The park opens with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Memorial Day.
