Barbecue stations may also be considered for inclusion in a new master plan for the Sault’s signature park

A city subcommittee will start work this month on a master plan for Bellevue Park, Sault Ste. Marie’s main passive park.

Virginia McLeod, the city’s manager of recreation and culture, told a meeting of the parks and recreation advisory committee this week that the new subcommittee will hold its inaugural meeting on Feb. 25.

“We’re going to be working on the agenda over the next week, and laying out a timeline for public consultation,” McLeod said.

The popular 17-hectare park features 2.4 kilometres of asphalt walkway, a display greenhouse, floral beds, multiple playgrounds, a friendship trail, picnic shelter and a splash pad.

A new master plan for Bellevue Park was recommended in the city’s 2024 Parks and Recreation Master Plan.

That document suggested the city look at upgrades including a fat bike trail, improvements to the duck pond and barbecue stations.

“A master plan would carefully consider all of the amenities (including the marina), a plan for the playgrounds, connections required, parking needs, pathways and circulation, signage, accessibility, compatible and incompatible uses, etc. to create a thoughtful and cohesive plan for the park,” it said.

“We’ll be making sure that we have some background documentation that we could share,” McLeod said about the upcoming Bellevue consultations. 

“The last [Bellevue-specific] master plan is fairly old, so I haven’t been able to find the electronic version of it.

“It’s probably going to end up being a scanned document that we’ll be able to share.

“And then, taking some of the feedback that we’ve gotten from the parks and rec master plan … we’ll be able to pull those pieces out to say: ‘this is what the community said during the last consultation session with Bellevue Park,’ and taking all those different sources and compiling them together to make a work plan,” McLeod said.