LAWTON – Lawton may add more family-friendly features to Elmer Thomas Park over the next several years and reduce the number of roads, which could make the park safer for families and pedestrians.
The engineering firm Halff Associates, which is developing a master plan for the future of the park, unveiled a draft version of the plan during a town hall meeting March 1 at Lawton City Hall. The meeting, along with a Feb. 7 forum on the same subject, was designed to collect people’s suggestions for improvements at the park.
Some of the suggestions from both meetings, as well as comments from a steering committee, may be incorporated into the final version of the plan.
“We’ve gotten to a substantial completion point based on all the public input, the steering committee input, our site analysis,” said James Hazzard, landscape architect with Halff Associates. “But we’re just on the back end of completing and finalizing the concepts as they are.”
The master plan will focus on making Elmer Thomas safer for pedestrians and families. To achieve that goal, the plan will recommend reorganizing some activities, expanding other attractions and eliminating some roads that connect across the park.
Those steps will create an environment where children and their families can go from one attraction to another without having to cross any roads, Hazzard said.
“And also, just being able to enjoy more things at the park in a shorter, easier amount of time,” he said.
The plan will also recommend putting up signs to direct people to parking areas and various activities in the park.
New attractions
The plan will propose adding several more attractions to Elmer Thomas Park, including a skate park, an area for food trucks and a basketball court. The city may charge an admission fee for some attractions, such as the skate park.
Lawton resident Aquarion Yarbrough said some of those attractions would not appeal to teenagers or older adults.
“I haven’t heard anything that supports them,” he said.
Hazzard said he was sorry to hear that Yarbrough thought those amenities would not attract teenagers. But he said the plan could be expanded to include features that would cater to that audience.
“Knowing that you want to see more of that, it does kind of conflict with some of the open-space requirements or requests that we’ve received,” Hazzard said. “But it’s also a large park, and I think we might be able to expand on that just a little bit to adequately serve that section of the population we’re talking about.”
Another Lawton resident, Justin Stevens, said he thought the plan should include attractions that would appeal to all ages.
“Just be more inclusive, and you’ll make all these people here happy,” he said.
Halff will present the final version of the plan to the Lawton City Council on April 11.