Historic District’s Heritage Park on the verge of major repairs — thanks to private donors

A downtown Columbus city park that has fallen into disrepair is about to be restored to its original glory, thanks to more than $80,000 in private money that has been raised for the effort.

Heritage Park, at the corner of Seventh Street and Broadway in the city’s original Historic District, showcases Columbus’ industrial history with a number of water features, sculptures and structures. It was built in the late 1990s in a combine effort by two local nonprofit organizations, the Historic Columbus Foundation and Uptown Columbus Inc. More than $2.2 million in private funds were raised to build the park on the site of an old apartment complex that was razed in a revitalization effort.

The park opened in October 1999 and was given to the city, which now owns and maintains it. That maintenance work, especially to the water pump system, had become too costly for the city. In recent years, the city has been unable to maintain the pump system, forcing the water feature that ran through the heart of the park to be shut down two years ago.

Because much of the city’s industrial history centers on the Chattahoochee River, the lack of water in the park has been an issue.

Historic Columbus took the lead in raising the money to replace the water pumps, repair water lines, fix historical markers, and clean up and landscape the park.

“We felt this was important because we do still feel some ownership, as well as an obligation to the original donors to make sure that this work was done,” Historic Columbus Executive Director Elizabeth Barker said.

The work will begin before the end of the year and should be finished by the spring, Barker said.

“Over the next six to eight months, a lot of work will be happening here,” Barker said this week as she said under the park’s pavilion that symbolizes the role lumber played in the city’s development. “Historic Columbus has been working with the city on a plan to replace the pump system. ... The park has been in need of revitalization for a couple of years. We are very fortunate to be able to help out with that.”

When the park was built, there was more than $50,000 remaining and that money was placed into a maintenance fund to assist with repairs. The nearly $24,000 still in that fund was the seed money to get to the goal needed for the repairs, Barker said. The Historic District Preservation Society, a nonprofit made up of mostly district residents, donated $7,000 toward the project. An anonymous donor contributed the remaining $50,000 needed to move forward with the repairs, Barker said.

It is another “phenomenal example of the city’s public-private partnerships,” City Manager Isaiah Hugley said Thursday.

“That’s a lot of money,” Hugley said. “When you think about where the city is today, it is because of these public-private partnerships. They are all over the place. The playground on Bay Avenue was a $500,000 investment with no city money. The water park by the playground was a $450,000 private investment with no city money. So, it is no surprise to me that Historic Columbus and HDPS would come forward with this money to make the repairs.”

It was an easy decision for HDPS, President Fred Greene said.

“Elizabeth approached us and asked if we would think about doing something,” Greene said. “By suggestion was $5,000, but the board felt strongly enough to donate $7,000.”

Historic Columbus and HDPS have been worked together many times over the years, most recently when the two nonprofits split the bill on a $14,000 project to place benches throughout the district.

Heritage Park has a dozen different areas that reflect on the city’s industrial history. It starts with a statue to Dr. John Pemberton, a pharmacist and inventor who lived in Columbus and Atlanta and invented the original Coca-Cola formula.

“Heritage Park was developed initially as a way to connect the past of Dr. Pemberton’s house on Seventh Street with the future of the Coca-Cola Space Science Center,” Barker said.

This story was originally published August 16, 2018 at 4:49 PM.