City Seeks Contractors for Reconstruction of Tyrone Crabb Park

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The City of Newburgh is seeking sealed bids from qualified applicants for the reconstruction of Tyrone Crabb Park including playground installation.  Tyrone Crabb Park, at South and Liberty Streets, will incorporate active and passive space including an outdoor stage, landscaping, walkways, lighting and benches.  Bids must be returned to the City Comptroller’s office, 4th floor, City Hall, 83 Broadway by April 21, 2014, at 2 p.m.  The City of Newburgh anticipates construction will commence in May/ June 2014.

Community members have lobbied for a park on the vacant lot across from Calvary Presbyterian Church and Old Town Cemetery since the late 1990’s. The original design concept for Tyrone Crabb Memorial Park was created by local architect Drew Kartiganer. Eberlin & Eberlin Associates, Landscape Architects and Consulting Engineers have been hired to complete the final design.

A City Councilman from 1985-1989, Tyrone Crabb was elected Mayor in November of 1999, and died Dec. 22, 1999 soon after taking the oath of office but before his official term could begin. Following his death, the City Council appointed his widow, Mary Crabb, to serve as Mayor.

Official bid documents can be obtained from the City Engineer’s office, first floor, City Hall, 83 Broadway,  for $25 a copy (non-refundable), or through the Hudson Valley Municipal Purchasing Group (HVMPG) Regional Bid Notification System at http://www.empirestatebidsystem.com  at no charge.  Copies of the bidding documents obtained from any other source are not considered official copies.  Only those vendors who obtain bidding documents from the Engineer’s Office, or the Regional Bid Notification System will be sent addendum information, if such information is issued.  For more information, please visit http://www.cityofnewburgh-ny.gov/planning-development.

This project is funded through grants from the NY State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) and the United States Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD).

18 Comment

  • Another empty lot that epitomizes the pettiness of our city government. This park was planned in 1999 by a group of neighbors known as the Newburgh Neighbors Network. Drew Kartiganer took the group’s ideas and brilliantly composed a schematic for the park that included three main items: a large fountain, a playground and a stage/open area. The city received county money from a grant written specifically for this park for half the estimated cost. After a change in politicians in City Hall that money was absconded and used for a park on Liberty Street designed in the ghetto trash tradition. (That park had to be completely rebuilt because the contractors screwed the whole thing up. It ended up costing the city more than half a million for a trashy park.) What’s really sad about this is that the community worked hard to get this to happen and City Hall trounced all over those people. One man who was very active in the planning and research stages was hoping for a park to walk his then toddler children. The family left in disgust after more than 10 years of being jerked around about this project. It should be noted that Courtney Kain- who remains a roving employee in City Hall- was instrumental in this atrocity. Until these kinds of people in City Hall are cleaned out, the concept of something progressive happening at this corner will remain a pipe dream. Look in the city’s records, there have been numerous calls for contractors for this site. We’re actually lucky it’s not a parking lot for Horizons school. Once again the volunteer citizens of this community dug out an old resolution that deemed that corner as a park- it was the only thing that saved it from being even worse. I just hope that all the new people moving here have a lot more strength in pushing City Hall around. It’s been one long unnecessary disappointment after another.

  • We were so hopeful, when my now college age child was young, to get a park in where we chose to live. The lack of a neighborhood playground impacted many of us. I was a part of the efforts to see this plan go forward and was disappointed multiple times. This was one of many occurrences that affected myself and my family’s attitude about living in Newburgh. I do see positive changes in this potentially lovely city, and I truly hope this plan is realized. So sorry it did not happen in Mary Crabb’s lifetime.

  • whatever was… lets hope that we can do better.. any park there will be progress. and i would hope that it can be built, at long last, to honor tyrone. consideration should also be given to adding Mary Crabb’s name to the park for they were a team and both loved the City of Newburgh despite its troubles and woes. thank you for the shout out mike. it was an incredibly good plan but once the kids get playing there, maybe we can still smile and move Newburgh forward to a better place, one step at a time.

    and as Prime Minister Thatcher of England once said, “sometimes you have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”… we might want to make that the motto for the City of Newburgh…. lol..

    • No, the Newburgh motto seems to be, we’ll take anything because we’re not deserving of anything better. Any park will not be better. The grass is better than any park. Plant a few trees or a little landscaping and it would be far better than concrete slabs and chain link fences. That 15 foot chain link fence that surrounds the school parking is an insult to the neighborhood. There are many better appearing solutions.

  • My company will be bidding for this simply amazing opportunity to brighten Newburgh. I am super excited for the opportunity to be a part of this project. Even if we don’t get the contract this park will be an asset to the area. The lighting alone will help stabilize the surrounding blocks. There is lots of space that needs to be reallocated in Newburgh and this is a great location to work with!

    • As someone who has submitted a proposal for this project, can you endulge this site’s readers with a few details pertaining to it ? Will the lighting you mentioned be LED ? Other item of interest are accessibility, fencing, landscaping etc.. Thanks in advance.
      Related, but not directly to the design/build, will the project’s maintenance be a community/municipality joint effort (ex. the ‘City provides the paint, mulch, etc. with community volunteers providing the basic labor)? As I opined in some of my other comments, a ‘something for something’ approach can redirect a community’s mindset in a positive way with dividends when there is a sense of ownership ad some ‘skin in the game’.

  • The plans and specifications are available for viewing through the link listed in article. The basic scope of work includes the removal of existing building foundations and installation of two large Playland structures and a Spacepod climber, a 48″ chain link fence surrounds the playground area. Park drawings were designed by Eberlin and Eberlin of Brewster, NY. Concrete plaza, stone seat walls and planting beds are noted as by others. No lighting installation shown on the drawing set.

    • Thanks for the info. I went to the link, but as I’m not looking to bid on the project I didn’t have the required vendor registration needed to log into the site for more details. Now I do, I worked around that…

    • In other words, in the ghetto style. Chain link fences, concrete slabs… disgusting.

  • If it’s going to be anything like the park on Liberty Street off of Farrington, we should just leave it alone! At least now we have an open green space that does not attract drug dealers, pimps, loiteres and assorted losers to make it dirty and disgusting. A concrete slab and park benches would attract all of these vagrants, and the amount of broken glass and dime bags covering the floor would discourage this father of two small kids from ever going there.
    As an aside, I do currently visit with my dog (and yes, I do clean up after him – what a friggin’ concept!). It’s beautiful to gaze at the architecture of the Calvary Presbyterian Church.

  • Phase 3 , $40,000 plus to the build cost for archaeological monitoring and all. Smooth move.
    page 18
    http://www.cityofnewburgh-ny.gov/sites/newburghny/files/agenda/agenda-file/2014-4-14_city_council_agenda.pdf

    • Another open ended contract: “unanticipated and unforeseen discoveries may require additional work”. Meanwhile the second oldest building in Newburgh- the original meeting place for the local Masons- only a block away- sold for not much more than the value of this contract to dig up some ground under Urban Renewal-razed properties. I wouldn’t need to a contract to tell you that you’re going to find debris from these razed buildings. But of course no one is going to question the necessity of this- nor the fact that this company can make up all sorts of unanticipateds and unforeseens and no one in City Hall will do anything but write a check( within 30 days or 2% interest will accrue- this company’s done their research ; )

      • Exactly. I find artifacts doing minor landscaping on my north end property all the time. If you go to the same link, the agenda addresses the Newburgh dock with regards to a temporary fix and, separately, an assessment for damage. Together the two projects amount to over $50 k. Yet, the ‘City baulks at the notion of charging a parking fee at the water front. The taxpayers are in essence subsidizing the commercial river front. As a preempt, any rebuttal to the effect that “this is good business” is a weak strawman argument IMO. I say pay to play, as this selective austerity is at of hand.

  • All bids were rejected due to being over budget, by a good margin.
    Was there a budget? If there was, why the large disconnect between the design/build plans and reality?
    The ‘park’ portion of the project is said to be performed in the near future as per new guidelines while the ‘playground’ portion is put on hold. No mention of the “artifacts”.
    To be continued…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJCRCIZtDZw&list=UUV5WAVf4DXJLCSU2yXImM2g
    22min. in, with the spin @ 31:50