Improvements to Veterans Memorial Park will start after Memorial Day. The city Public Works Department will be adding nine parking spaces, constructing a new gazebo, adding granite curbs and milling and paving Logan Avenue. P-J photo by Dennis Phillips

Nine parking spaces, construction of a new gazebo, adding granite curbs and milling and paving Logan Avenue will be happening after Memorial Day at Veterans Memorial Park.

The city Planning Commission discussed last week the improvements that will be made to the park. Crystal Surdyk, city principal planner, said the work cannot start until after Memorial Day service at the park, but should start within the first couple of weeks in June.

“This is Phase 4 of a multiphase plan,” Surdyk said. “The overall master plan was approved several years ago and it has evolved over the last few years. This phase will finish the overall plan.”

In April 2017, former state Sen. Cathy Young announced at the park that she had secured $100,000 in state funding for improvements to Veterans Memorial Park, which is located along West Third Street near Logan and Harding avenues.

The park was created when it was decided in 2011 to move war memorials from the former park location near the intersection of East Third and East Second streets near Jamestown High School. That is when the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation and Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi started the relocation project. The chairman for the project was Ronald Cotton, who spent the last four years of his life toward making the relocation project a reality.

The six historic monuments located in the former Veterans Memorial Park were relocated and set in a stamped concrete base with landscaping added to accentuate the memorials. New park amenities and the relocated memorials were joined by three brick circles connected by a handicapped accessible walkway. The first circle displays a cannon, the second and largest circle displays a flag pole and monuments honoring the branches of the U.S. military, and the third circle consists of a memorial to those who lost their lives in combat.

Through the assistance of approximately 130 local organizations, veterans groups, business and individuals, $300,000 was raised to develop Veterans Memorial Park.