On warm summer days, children run and splash through the spray park at Fairgrounds Park.
Just about any day, residents run, walk and bike along the paved recreation path that loops Loveland or play a round of golf at Mariana Butte. Nearly every weekend, ballplayers are enjoying the fields at Barnes Park and Centennial Park.
Four years ago, the massive floods that raged through the Big Thompson Canyon and Loveland destroyed these parks and recreation areas along with many others, leaving behind loads of debris, mangled fences, paved areas with giant holes, destruction all around.
City staff and volunteers immediately began cleaning up the parks, open lands and golf courses, some of which reopened within a year while others took longer to fully repair. The last, Viestenz-Smith Mountain Park, which is located in the canyon, is under construction and expected to reopen next summer. All told, the repairs, replacements and clean-up is expected to cost $8.6 million for all of Loveland’s parks, open lands and golf courses damaged in the flood.
Marilyn Hilgenberg, the city’s open lands and trails manager, said city staff decided right away that they would work as hard and as fast as they could to get the parks and trails reopened, and they worked alongside many volunteers and contractors to get the job done.
“We made a conscious decision that this was our No. 1 priority, and we were going to kick it and get it done,” said Hilgenberg.
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