A donation from the Kenai River Rotary has spurred some planned improvements to the Arc Lake recreational area.
Soldotna Parks and Recreation Director Andrew Carmichael said the park was created in the 1980’s but suffered a lot of vandalism because it did not see much traffic.
Carmichael: “Since we’ve slowly been redoing it, cutting out the brush so the visibility’s high and then obviously the last couple of years we’ve been plowing it and making an ice rink there for outdoor skating and then we added the fire pit. Then we realized that the fire pit was outside of code because the code said no fires at Arc Lake which was kind of a carry over from when people weren’t taking care of it.”
An ordinance will be introduced at Wednesday night’s Soldotna city council meeting to allow fires in the designated fire pits. That meeting will begin at 6 pm Wednesday, August 26 in the Soldotna City Chambers.
As for the plans for the donation…
Carmichael: “With the help of Kenai River Rotary who gave us about a $6,000 grant, we’ll be redressing the top parking area, making it look better. We’ll be adding a picnic table and a bench and then also maybe another fire pit in addition to the one we have there.”
Carmichael said eventually he hopes to develop a walking path all the way around the lake, for activities like walking, skiing, and biking.