Wellness, BMX & skateboard parks planned for Lake Ridge

LAKE RIDGE — A new wellness park is coming to the site of an old commuter parking lot.

The two-and-half acre lot at the corner of Harbor Drive in Minnieville Road, near a Senatra Medical Center, will be the home of what is being dubbed the Harbor Drive Wellness Park. It’ll feature playground equipment for all ages, from toddlers to seniors, to people with disabilities.

“And there’s even one piece of equipment that we’re looking at where someone in a wheelchair could pull up to it and actually exercise their arms and so on,” said Occoquan District Supervisor Ruth Anderson.

Anderson in recent months has been posing for the creation of new parks in the Occoquan District. The fully-developed magisterial district on the eastern side of Prince William County has the least amount of open space.

Anderson said the nearby, soon-to-be-built Kaiser Permanente Health hub will have some involvement with the park. A path from the planned five-story facility at the corner of Minnieville and Caton Hill roads will connect patients with the park, a two-mile run or walk.

In a Potomac Local Live interview, Anderson said residents wanted a passive park.

“At our public meetings like I said they didn’t want a community garden because they were afraid it might become unkempt and they didn’t want that.

They also didn’t want a lot of noise, like a big bandshell with [live] bands…but what they acclimated to was some workout equipment and then there were several requests for they wanted equipment that children, as well as adults, could work out on. We took it a step further and there were some families that wanted playground equipment for disabled children. So that is what we are focused on is equipment.”

There had been an idea to make the park a community garden.

Anderson added:

“Well at our public meetings like I said they didn’t want a community garden because they were afraid it might become unkempt and they didn’t want that.”

The $1.3 million park could open as soon as fall 2020 if all goes to plan, said Anderson. Kaiser Permanente has issued a $25,000 grant to the county to fund a portion of the park cost.

The parcel of land on which the park will sit had been owned by the Prince William County Service Authority. It transferred ownership of the land to the county.

Anderson is also focused on building a new BMX park at the corner of Smoketown and Old Bridge roads in Lake Ridge, near the Old Bridge Festival shopping center.

Anderson said:

[A non-profit organization that is raising funds to build park] is going to name it the Charlie Boone Memorial Park is working on raising money for the infrastructure for a BMX practice, and also a skateboard facility.”

Named for the late 22-year-old Lake Ridge resident, the park could take about five years to build, adds Anderson.