A bike ride through Bryant Park on Nov. 20 was the first time I had seen this addition to the park.
Someone built a sturdy wooden structure in Albany’s Bryant Park, and I wondered about it when I first saw it on a bike ride through the park this week.
The raised platform comes with a staircase and hand railing all around it. It also has what I gathered is an electrical panel and a place for an electrical meter to be installed. A deep trench in the ground looked ready for an underground power supply.
What could that thing be for?
Were they planning go-cart races on the loop around the park, and was this the place where the guy would stand and wave the checkered flag? Or how about a cyclocross event with racers doing laps on the grass below?
Or maybe somebody was preparing for broadcast coverage of future disc golf tournaments, and this would be the perch from which the commentators deliver their whispered remarks?
No, sorry, nothing like that is going on, or planned.
As usual on questions about parks, Rick Barnett had the answer. He’s the Albany parks and facilities maintenance manager.
And on Friday he said: “The platform and the panel are something that Pacific Power is doing to replace the electrical post nearby that serves the ballfield lights. We didn’t have anything to do with it.” (hh)
The raised platform provides a good view of the Bryant Park loop road.
Electrical panel above the occasional flooding sounds like a good idea.
Perhaps the electrical panel is raised high enough to put it above any possible flooding in the park? It would need to be accessible without standing on a ladder. In anticipation, perhaps, of a 10,000 year flood, if there is such a thing? The conduit feeding the electrical panel and the panel itself are all rated for wet conditions.
Bryant park floods regularly because it’s right where the Calapooia River and Willamette River meet.