Water feature reopens in Santa Rosa’s Prince Gateway Park

The city has reopened a once-popular water feature in a downtown park that was shut down in 2009 for not complying with state health codes.

The so-called “sprayground” in the Prince Gateway Park spurted back to life Wednesday after an expensive reboot that included a new pool-quality water treatment system and bathrooms with outdoor showers.

“It’s been just great to have it activated again and to see families and children out using it,” said Adriane Mertens, marketing coordinator for the parks department.

After opening in April 2008, the spray zone in the center of the tiny $2 million park across from City Hall was shut down by county health inspectors in the fall of 2009. The water feature did not comply with state health guidelines that required publicly accessible fountains with recirculated water to be treated to the same level as pools.

The water in the original fountain was filtered, treated with chlorine and recirculated, Mertens said.

That work, done under a previous parks administration, appears to have been conducted without city building permits or required permits from the county health department.

The subsequent effort to get the fountain back up and running ran into a bureaucratic and regulatory quagmire.

The more stringent treatment requirements, the need for bathrooms, budget shortfalls, staff turnover and a multi-year drought all conspired to stall the effort for nearly seven years.

The parks department originally said it hoped to reopen the fountain in 2011. The current City Council and City Manager Sean McGlynn prioritized the project last year, allocating $800,000 to get the fountain running again.

Most council members justified the expense by saying they wanted to keep the city’s promise to the community.

The new fountain has a modern filtration system and dual-purpose treatment process that chlorinates the water and also zaps it with ultraviolet light to kill pathogens before the water shoots out in random patterns for children to play in.

As a few kids played in the fountain this week, former Santa Rosa City Councilman Steve Rabinowitsh came by to check it out.

He was instrumental in getting funding for both the Prince Memorial Greenway, which was constructed in the late 1990s to mid-2000s at a cost of nearly $25 million, as well as the funds for the gateway park, which is located on the site of a former gas station.

“It’s really exciting to see it back in operation,” Rabinowitsh said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing more kids using it.”

More than two dozen children and family members frolicked in the water and picnicked next to the sprayground on Saturday, when temperatures rose into the high 80s.

During the fountain’s years of disuse, the park became a common hangout for downtown denizens. Litter, cigarette butts and graffiti have been a recurring maintenance challenge in the park.

Mertens said “activation of the area” by families combined with regular visits from parks maintenance staff and vigilance by city police when issues arise should improve the situation.

The spray feature is open weekdays from 2 p.m. to ?6 p.m. and weekends from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The feature, which the city had hoped to open in July, will shut down at the end of October and reopen in the spring.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 707-521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @srcitybeat.