St. Thomas! Provide Input on Two New Park Designs

Photo: Maddie King & Andrew Gunn of young & free press stand on the vacant lot at 606 Talbot Street in downtown St. Thomas. Early concept plans have been developed by Arthur Lierman Landscape Architecture with a focus on building a new identity for the space. Plans for rejuvenating another site, Hepburn Park at 446 Talbot, have also been prepared.

Our team at young & free press is thrilled to be involved with the development of two fresh park spaces in downtown St. Thomas. Over the past year, we have worked in collaboration with the Parks, Recreation and Property Management department at the City to develop preliminary concepts, and early designs have been prepared by Arthur Lierman Landscape Architecture.

In 2020, we engaged in a similar process with the City to imagine the new Westlake Evans Civic Park for the lot next to the St. Thomas Public Library. This park opened officially in fall 2023 and features a playground, outdoor ping-pong tables, large-scale murals, seating areas and bike storage boxes. Now, we are turning our attention to two spaces on Talbot Street, including the vacant space at 606 Talbot (pictured in the photo above) as well as Hepburn Park, the existing green space at 446 Talbot (highlighted in the image below). Both sites have incredible potential to be active spots complete with things to see & do, room for special events, and beautiful landscaping, too. The next step is to gather input from community organizations and residents.

Photo: Hepburn Park at 446 Talbot Street in St. Thomas

Recently, Andrew Gunn & Maddie King from our team at young & free provided tours to elementary and secondary school students to gather early feedback on the park plans from local youth. Now, we are excited to meet with others in the community to get more input & ideas!

Here is how you can be involved in the process:

1 / Send an email to Andrew Gunn at andrew@youngandfreepress.ca to let us know if you would like to schedule a meeting to discuss the concept designs! We’ll send you the PDF file of the initial park plans and arrange a time to chat either in-person or by zoom. We are aiming to conduct all the meetings between July 29th and August 16th;

2 / Following the meeting, we will send you a form that provides space for your written comments, and then we will ask you to return the completed form to us by August 23rd.

Our goal is to make this a really fun, collaborative process in which community organizations and local individuals have the opportunity to share ideas and visions for the ongoing advancement of the city.

St. Thomas is growing and vibrant public spaces are essential to the process.

We look forward to hearing from you soon!