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Washington Evening Journal
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Washington, IA 52353
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Fairfield moving ahead with new plan for bathrooms at Chautauqua Park
FAIRFIELD – The City of Fairfield is hoping to usher in 2025 with a new bathroom at Chautauqua Park, more than a year later than expected because rising costs forced the city to reduce the scope of the project that originally included a larger building to house more than bathrooms.
In 2022, the Fairfield Park & Recreation Board announced a plan to construct a building in Chautauqua Park that would include five individual bathrooms, a locker room for parks staff, and a section for storage. The city asked contractors to bid on this project and an accompanying project of a new shelter at Waterworks Park, and expected the two projects combined to cost about $718,000, with most of that coming from a $500,000 grant from the Edd and Darlene Felgar Estate. But when only one bid came in, and for just over $1 million, the city was forced to put the plan on hold.
Fairfield City Engineer and Public Works Director Melanie Carlson said the city is now ready to move forward with a scaled-back structure at Chautauqua Park with room for four individual bathrooms but no locker room or storage area. The company the city is planning to hire will build the structure off-site and haul it in before the end of the year.
“The idea of a park shed is still in the works, but it’s going to be separate,” Carlson said. “We’re proceeding with just the bathrooms, four single-user bathrooms.”
Under the previous proposal, this new building would have been close to the existing parks buildings to allow for easier access to the locker rooms and storage. But now that those amenities have been removed from the proposal, the new bathroom will be built further into Chautauqua Park, just west of shelter No. 2, and south of shelter No. 1. Carlson said shelter No. 2 is one of the most popular shelters in the park, and will allow the city to save money in utilities.
“This location is also closer to Burlington Avenue than the previous lay out, so that will give us added security from the fact that the building is visible from Burlington.”
The city tore down the park’s wood-frame bathroom in March 2021, which dated from the 1960s. C racks in its foundation and the resulting broken pipes were too costly to repair. In the three years since, park users have relied on a couple of portable toilets near the entrance, plus another at the park’s eastern edge.
