Park pond to be shored up

The pond at Veterans Memorial Park in Union Township will undergo some $100,000-worth of improvements that by year’s end should raise its water level and stabilize its shore.

The Union Township Board of Trustees recently agreed to pay Advanced Contractors & Estimators Inc. of Lockland $96,800 to do the work, which includes building a retaining wall.

Township trustees said they have received multiple complaints about the pond in the 25-acre Veterans Memorial Park at the corner of Clough Pike and Glen Este-Withamsville Road.

“We need to take care of our core park areas and this has been needed to be done for a long time,” said John McGraw, chairman of the board of trustees.

“(We get) a lot of complaints from the residents about the way the park the pond looks now, and this will be a big step forward in helping fix that.”

Vice Chairman Lloyd Acres agreed.

“The pond was slowly eroding and needed to be refurbished to the standards the residents of Union Township deserve,” Acres said.

Trustee Matthew Beamer joined Acres and McGraw in approving a contract with Advanced Contractors & Estimators Inc., whom administrators said submitted the lowest bid on the work.

“The shoreline has been declining around the pond the last several years, and this action will correct the pond area,” Beamer said.

Work on the pond, which is located on the southeast side of the Veterans Memorial Park near Clough Pike, is to begin sometime in August.

A retaining wall built with concrete blocks designed to look like cobblestone will surround the pond, which has a circumference of 865 feet.

Want to know more about what is happening in Union Township? Follow me on Twitter @jeannehouck.