From The Morning Journal News:
COLUMBIANA – A park spanning over three acres is planned for the Links at Firestone Farms and is yet another project of Tom Mackall, doing business as Firestone Homestead, LLC.
The new park is not affiliated with another Firestone Homestead project already under way in that area, but is specifically for the residents at Firestone Farms, which is also owned by Firestone Homestead.
The 3.5-acre park will feature a walking trail, picnic tables, playground, tennis courts, basketball court, bocce court, and pickle ball court, according to minutes of this month’s planning commission meeting.
Mackall and Andy Bednar, of Baker, Bednar, Snyder and Associates, presented the site plan to the commission during the meeting, and it was approved with all members in favor.
“It is very professionally done,” Mayor Bryan Blakeman, a member of the planning commission, said of the blueprints after the meeting. “(This is) the first proposed park in Columbiana that I am aware of since Firestone Park.”
The cost of the park was not shared with the commission, he added.
Bednar said a sign will be placed at the entrance to the park designating it is for resident and guest use only.
There are about 120 residential units in use there currently, and future plans call for more than 600 units, Blakeman said.
He also said that as owner of the homeowners association, Mackall has sought input from residents as to what they would like to see done in that community.
Blakeman lives in the Firestone Farms housing development and said he was able to vote on the matter because the park would not provide him with any financial gain or loss.
He did abstain from the vote when Mackall presented the Town Center and Marketplace at Firestone Farms commercial development, a separate project already under way in that area.
Construction on the park should begin this fall, he said.
