Foothills

Girl's memorial: a park for all

A family's tragedy provided the momentum for developing a county park with multiple themes and uses and a single name. The park site, between River Road and the Rillito River, west of Dodge Boulevard, was a moribund project before Jon Fenton pushed to plan it and promised to raise more than $1 million to develop it. Last month, the Pima County Board of Supervisors approved the master plan for developing the park and voted to name it Brandi Fenton Memorial Park, after Jon and April Fenton's 13-year-old daughter, who was killed in an automobile accident March 22 of last year. The board, spurred by the Fentons' involvement, had previously included $3 million in the county's May 18 bond election for the park's development and another $800,000 for historic preservation of the site's homes. Jon Fenton, who began casting about for a way to memorialize his daughter shortly after her death, said he was looking for a much smaller project when his friend Yoram Levy, a county Parks and Recreation commissioner, suggested the 57 acres along the river that the county had no immediate plans to develop. Fenton, president of A.F. Sterling Homes, said he was "lost in a cloud" after his daughter's death and couldn't really focus on work. "This definitely gave us all something to look forward to," he said. There was no money and no master plan for the area, known historically as Binghampton and named "Riverbend" for its location just north of where the Rillito makes a 90-degree bend to the south before resuming its westward flow. An earlier attempt had failed to reconcile the many interests involved in the area. Binghampton was historically important - the home of the first Mormon agrarian community in Tucson. Last year, area residents petitioned for historic status and it became the county's first historic rural landscape. Horse enthusiasts wanted to the park to reflect the area's equestrian roots. Smaller horse ranches and farms had replaced Binghampton over time. The county, which has little space for athletic fields and recreational programs in the expensive Foothills north of the park, wanted playing fields on the site, while neighbors were concerned about the lights that accompany them. On the park's southern boundary, the county had already shored up the Rillito's banks and begun building trails as part of a linear park system. It also planned a highway through it. The next segment of River Road widening is scheduled to begin this fall. River Road will bisect the park to bridge the Rillito and connect with Alvernon Way, which currently dead-ends on the south bank. Fenton and Levy brought architect Phil Swaim into the project. "The county had tried to develop a concept a few years ago," Swaim said, "but the neighborhood never came to consensus." Swaim Associates and landscape architects McGann & Associates brought a group of about 20 people together to discuss the possible uses and then held an all-day planning workshop. The end result is a master plan that melds every use proposed. The west end is identified as equestrian, with plans for two arenas and a staging area with access to the river path. Three athletic fields, two designed for organized soccer games, will have their boundaries defined by canals built to water Binghampton's crops. Existing hedgerows and fences will be preserved where possible. Some of the older homes will be restored, with one housing an interpretive center and another becoming an agricultural center, with greenhouses and demonstration gardens. Orchards of fruit and nut trees, which have historically grown on the site, will line the roadway where River is set to bend through the park on its way to the Alvernon Way bridge. There will be the usual basketball courts and dog runs for big and little dogs. There will be a splash park for the youngsters and even a bocce court and a horseshoe pit. And there will be a memorial garden, with an opportunity for other parents to memorialize their children. While the park is named for his daughter, Fenton said, its uses are for everyone. Supervisor Ann Day, whose office worked with Fenton and Swaim to plan the park, said before the board voted unanimously to accept the master plan that Brandi Fenton's life had become "the inspiration for a community park and the last piece of the puzzle in preserving a unique area in Pima County." Her parents and her sister Cassidy, 7, and brother Garrett, 12, describe Brandi as a compassionate, athletic, happy child, devoted to school, tennis and a wide circle of friends. The past year has been tough on the family, but Jon Fenton said he's comforted by the notion that youngsters will have a place to run and play and be kids a lot sooner because of their efforts in her memory. At age 13, Brandi was too young to even think about a legacy, Day said, but her "vitality and youth is just what was needed."