By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Both Brandon Township and Ortonville will be getting concession stands thanks to the Department of Natural Resources Land and Water Conservation Fund grant.
Brandon Township was granted a $120,400 matching grant for a building at the Brandon Township Community Park on Hadley Road. The building will include a full concession stand with a pavilion and two unisex bathrooms.
“It’ll be completely, universally accessible,” said Parks and Recreation Director Fred Waybrant. “The design has not been established yet by the engineers, but the building itself is a 20- foot-by-20- foot and the pavilion is 20-foot-by-20 foot, so this is a good size area.”
This is the third LWCF grant the township has received in the last four years for development of the township park, and Waybrant says this was another thing to check off of the list of projects for the park.
“The DNR is showing a lot of interest in helping me develop this park,” he said. “I’m hoping that if things move smoothly we can break ground next fall, and the last two grants will be completed by then.”
Waybrant also says he hoped the park will be fully completed by fall of 2021 with the addition of two more baseball fields that were originally in the plans and had to be dropped due to cost as well as a gazebo near the tree library.
Ortonville also received a grant for $25,900 to update the current concession stand at Sherman Park. The grant, with a minimum of match of $11,100, will go towards updating electrical, lighting, plumbing, roofing, flooring and storage. It will also add three accessible parking spaces, an accessible walkway from the parking lot to the building, an accessible concessions counter, and will upgrade the bathrooms to be accessible as well.
“They’ve given us approval to do some base work starting now or in January,” said Village Clerk Liz Edwards. “It’ll be six month before we get the funds, but they have recommended us for approval and typically that means we will get the grant.”