Heated facility open year-round, triple the size of old building
Frequent visitors to Cassville’s City Park will soon have a new place to “go.”
A project planned in 2020 and put on hold due to COVID and the city’s National Flood Insurance Program opportunity, new bathrooms have been built and should open by the end of February.
David Brock, Cassville public works director, said the previous facility was built around the time the park was done in the 1970s.
“They were stinky and dark, and they were not heated, so we had to shut them down in the winter,” Brock said. “You couldn’t scrub out the odor in there.”
Brock said new facility construction began in earnest about a year ago, and the $289,000 building is primarily concrete and steel for longevity and vandalism deterrence.
“This facility is sturdy,” he said. “We did not want anything people could beat up or bend or break. It’s all concrete and steel. It’s really impressive the gauge of steel they are using on the roof. It’s easily a 40- to 50-year building.”
The bathrooms are also much larger — about three times the size.
“Before, we had one stall in the women’s room and one in the men’s,” Brock said. “Now, the women’s room has three toilets, and there is a family bathroom and a men’s room. That will better-serve the area, especially when ball games are going on. We can also access the locks on an online system, and the timer set automatically locks the doors outside of park hours.”
Security in the park is also upgrading, as new security cameras have been installed.
“There are cameras on the front of the building facing the parking lot,” Brock said. “Not too long ago, someone took a hammer to the sink in the ballfield concession stand. I don’t know what enjoyment someone gets from beating a sink into shards, but that’s what they did.
“We use the same security company, Federal Protection out of Springfield, who did our door locks and cameras at city hall. They have an online system for the cameras we can navigate with ease.”
Brock said the cameras have motion detection software, allowing employees to check specifically when activity occurred.
“They are good quality cameras with good detail,” Brock said. “The program is pretty neat. We can see when police officers patrol the park. When that first happened, we thought who would be in the park at 3 a.m., then we looked at the video, and it was one of our police cars.”
Brock said the roof was about 95 percent complete last week, and electric work was slated to be finished. He hopes the bathrooms are open to the public by the end of February.
