After more than 5 years of planning, preparation, and construction, the new Kenai dog park, the Bark Park, is officially open. The ribbon cutting ceremony was held on Friday, July 28th, with many from the community – of both the two and four-legged variety – in attendance.
In 2018 a group of Kenai community members – former mayor Pat Porter among them – set in motion proposals and plans for a dog park. The group asked the Kenai City Council to donate a portion of land for a potential dog park, an area they could begin clearing and building a fence around. From there, the idea only got bigger and better.
Current Kenai Mayor, Brian Gabriel, was present for the ribbon cutting, and shared how the project took on a new look over the years;
“The project kind of expanded a little bit because we looked at elements that I don’t think maybe weren’t considered originally that we wanted to incorporate into that. As you can see, we’ve got a small dog section and a large dog section, and the reason for that is dog safety, so you don’t have big dogs and little dogs commingling and possibly having a problem with that. So, with that we brought our public works department, got involved and helped do some of the design because last year when we were getting fairly close, we had all that rain and we found out we had some ponding in this area. So we had to bring in a bunch of sand and topsoil to plant the grass you see here.”
It wasn’t just the work of a few hands that turned this park into a reality, however. Many people from within the community offered either their time, financial support, or both to the development of the Kenai Bark Park. Mayor Gabriel gestures toward the mural of a tree with the names of these generous community members as he says, “You can see just by looking at that there was a lot of people that got behind this.”
The Kenai City Council first approved the project in 2018, however, the majority of the construction occurred this year.
Gabriel recalled the course the project took over five years, and how pleased he is with the outcome;
“So a few little change, of course, here and there throughout the project, but I’m happy to say whatever we do here, we want to be proud of that. We have a project that I think the community can be really proud of, and I think we’ve accomplished that.”
The park covers 1.5 acres, is completely fenced in, and features a large field area, agility equipment, benches and a walking path, as well as dog, size-specific portions designated for “Large Paws” and “Small Paws.”
Visit the Kenai Bark Park Facebook page, www.facebook.com/KenaiDogPark, for more information.
