On the waterfront – BRAF making headway on lakes project; gathering public input

We’re getting closer to a master plan for the Baton Rouge lakes, and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation announced finalists last week to develop preliminary ideas to present to the public.

The four finalist teams have previously worked on public green space projects like the Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans, the Horse Farm park in Lafayette, the Buffalo Bayou Promenade in Houston and more. They will be introduced during a public meeting June 30 at the Manship Theatre. After that, a selection committee will choose the final planning team by July with design work to start in the late summer.

In terms of public input, BRAF had this to say:

Planners must engage residents to seek ideas for making the lakes an even better destination for the community. Planners will use public input to produce an overall design for the lakes and 45 acres that surround it, a circulation plan that includes paths with connections to area neighborhoods, and gateway suggestions for exits at I-10 and Dalrymple Drive. Planners also must deliver a landscaping scheme, design wayfinding and signs, offer a habitat restoration plan and suggest methods for reducing noise and mitigating drainage from I-10.

Read the foundation’s press release for more information on the finalist teams.

Drumming up more community support for the endeavor to improve the lakes, which include City Park’s lake, the LSU lakes and BREC’s Milford Wampold Memorial Park and beach, BRAF also launched the Destination: The Lakes website last week.

BRAF’s Mukul Verma says they will integrate the MindMixer platform into the site so residents can share ideas with planners and the community.

The MindMixer platform is the same as what BREC launched earlier this year to gather input from residents for the “Imagine Your Parks 2” campaign.

That platform has helped BREC get thousands of interactions with residents discussing what types of amenities they’d want to see and how they’d allocate funding for parks, so it could prove useful for the lakes project as well.

The first major step for improving the lakes, though, is improving what’s underneath the surface. According to BRAF, the average depth of the City Park and LSU lakes is 2.5 feet, which makes it likely the lakes will revert to swampland unless dredged. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommends dredging the lakes—which are about 275 acres total—to an average depth of five to seven feet to keep them healthy.

So, while we wait for BRAF to set up the MindMixer platform on the new site, what are your suggestions for how to improve the Baton Rouge lakes? Do you want to see more bike and pedestrian paths along the perimeters? More boating possibilities? A lakeside café? A trampoline pedestrian bridge?

(Kidding on that last one … but only a little.)

Let us know in the comments!

Image above by Tim Mueller.