Parks & Recreation Grant

Myers Park Press Release 1/5/2022

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Patrick Tyrrell, Director of Lansing Parks and Recreation
(607) 533-7388

Lansing Town Supervisor Ed LaVigne is pleased to announce the Town's Parks and Recreation Department has been awarded a $750,000 grant by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation to help fund the Myers Park Waterfront Revitalization Project. The planned improvements to Myers Park, a 33-acre regional flagship park located on Cayuga Lake in the Town of Lansing, include upgraded courts, an upgraded boat launch, RV and campsite iprovements, circulation, access, parking, and utility upgrades, as well as the construction of a new unisex ADA- and family-accessible restroom facility at the campgrounds, upgrades to the septic system reducing runoff into Cayuga Lake, and a new ADA-accessible kayak launch for access to the Cayuga Lake Blueway Trail.

Myers Park is one of the main access points to Cayuga Lake for Town of Lansing and Tompkins County residents. Like many parks, Myers Park has seen a significant increase in visitors (30,781 in 2020, up threefold) during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Town has been a steady caretaker of the land since it was donated by the International Salt Plant in 1959, the Town has recognized the need to plan for major park improvements.

After receiving notice that the Town was not selected for funding from the Environmental Protection Fund from state funding rounds in 2018 and 2019, respectively, the Town created the Town of Lansing Parks, Recreation and Trails Advisory Committee to advise the Parks & Recreation Department and Town Board on all matters pertaining to or affecting the coordination, oversight, acquisition, development, funding and programming of the parks, recreation, and trail system.

MJ Engineering and Land Surveying and PLACE Alliance, in cooperation with the Town's Planning Department and Parks & Recreation Department, sought to rethink physical spaces and programming opportunities, reconnect physically within the Town's parks, visually to the waterfront and programmatically for the community, and to re-focus activities within Myers Park to maximize the space and focus on the pedestrian realm. Full details of the planning and public engagement efforts are located at the Lansing Parks and Trails Plan website.

Architectural and engineering design services will be retained for the Myers Park Waterfront Revitalization Project in early 2022, with preliminary construction anticipated to begin in fall 2022