There’s one less restroom in Bluffton, but no one is complaining.
The building – if you’d call it a restroom – at the Spring Street side of the Buckeye Park was removed earlier this month by village employees.
Its condition was the butt of jokes during a recent Bluffton council meeting, when one village employee stated, “We ought to pay people to use it,” noting its condition.
While it’s not cheap to go to the bathroom, Bluffton council’s park and recreation board, meeting on Jan. 29, flushed out ideas for a replacement.
While a new restroom at the park is not yet engineered, a revised estimate for its replacement, with the addition of a small parking area, could cost $108,000.
Meeting Feb. 12, Bluffton council okayed $11,600 to go toward an engineering design. Choice One will engineer the project.
The intent is to build a new restroom outside the flood plain and closer to the shuffleboard courts and BFR outdoor soccer field. That will require the fence around the sewage treatment plant to be moved.
The village has already received a $20,000 NatureWorks Grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and a $6,500 Johnny Appleseed grant earmarked for the park.
An anticipated April date for awarding of bids will allow for a better estimate on the project cost, thus making it less than a crap shoot.
One additional Buckeye Park issue is being addressed this spring by the park and rec board. The project involves rebuilding the dike between the Buckeye and Riley Creek. One area of the dike is prone to becoming a falls when the creek overflows.
One idea is to place boulders in the location where the falls tends to occur.
