CIVIC MEMORIAL PARK

Civic Memorial Park is a reinvented space located in downtown Vernon, BC, situated on the former site of the Vernon Civic Memorial Arena. The park is accessible from frontages on all sides, including one that interfaces with a major active transportation corridor. The park’s various features, which include a playground with wood play elements and a misting plaza, a large green space for flexible recreation and event programming, a perimeter walking loop and a wooden shade structure, create a memorable place where the community gathers, families picnic, children play safely, and neighbours enjoy outdoor games together. A grove of deciduous shade trees in permeable granular paving provides a comfortable year-round picnic spot that is shaded in summer and sunny in the winter. On two edges of the site, all stormwater from the park plus additional runoff from surrounding roads is directed into rain gardens.

Timbers from the decommissioned arena that occupied the site for the previous 80 years were re-used in the design of custom site furnishings and the pavilion within the park. BENCH advocated for the careful salvaging of concrete panels from an adjacent sidewalk that needed to be removed to replace aging underground utilities; the panels ultimately saw new life and were sawcut into bands and used as pathway edger, stacked as playground steps and mortared in layers to create the bases for custom benches.