By Matt Fredmonsky
Record-Courier staff writer
Kent City Council will meet tonight to consider applying for an Ohio Department of Natural Resources grant to fund construction of a whitewater park along the Cuyahoga River.
Council will discuss a resolution to allow the city administration to apply for a Cooperative Boating Facility Grant, administered by the ODNR, for the purpose of constructing a whitewater park in downtown. According to the meeting agenda, the grant request is not to exceed $1.5 million.
In 2007, the ODNR awarded $3.6 million in grant money for improving public boating access facilities across the state. The program receives approximately $7.2 million bi-annually for disbursement.
The cooperative boating access grants operate on a reimbursement basis, so the city would have to pay the initial costs to construct the park before the state would pay those costs back. The deadline for the grant application is April 1. Grant recipients will be announced in August.
Colorado-based Recreation Engineering and Planning, the nation's leading whitewater park and stream modification consulting firm, is designing the Kent project.
The Kent Cuyahoga River Park, as REP engineer Mike Harvey has referred to the project, would consist of a few in-stream modifications to the river and a second walking path closer to the water in the span from the Main Street Bridge to Brady's Leap. Access to the river would be improved from the point just north of Brady's Leap south to Tannery Park.
The Kent Parks and Recreation department and Main Street Kent have partnered to fund the initial design costs of the project.
Council will meet at 7 p.m. in council chambers at 217 E. Summit St.