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The Heartwell Park restroom building is demolished Monday morning.
The Heartwell Park bathroom building is razed Monday morning. A new bathroom will be built near the playground.
The Heartwell Park bathroom on the corner of California Ave. and Lakeside Dr. is demolished Monday morning.
Demolition of the bathroom building takes place Monday morning at Heartwell Park.
Young canoers enjoy an afternoon at Heartwell Park in Hastings May 23, 1936. The newly completed bathroom, a Works Progress Administration project, is seen in the background.
The new prefabricated restroom at Heartwell Park will resemble the building seen here.
The Heartwell Park restroom building is demolished Monday morning.
The Heartwell Park bathroom building is razed Monday morning. A new bathroom will be built near the playground.
The Heartwell Park bathroom on the corner of California Ave. and Lakeside Dr. is demolished Monday morning.
Demolition of the bathroom building takes place Monday morning at Heartwell Park.
Young canoers enjoy an afternoon at Heartwell Park in Hastings May 23, 1936. The newly completed bathroom, a Works Progress Administration project, is seen in the background.
The new prefabricated restroom at Heartwell Park will resemble the building seen here.
Plagued by vandalism, creating issues when it comes to maintenance and just plain accessibility, the Heartwell Park restroom was torn down Monday.
Parks and Recreation Director Jeff Hassenstab said his department initially looked at renovating the building, which was constructed in the 1930s as a Works Progress Administration project. It posed compliance issues with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The building itself, if you’ve ever been by it or in it, it’s very challenging; very narrow steps you have to drop down and then you have to step up to get inside either restroom facility,” he said. “After evaluating that, it was just time not to consider it as a renovation.”
The building once served as a warming area.
“It has a fireplace in there,” Hassenstab said. “It hasn’t been used in a long, long time. In my time here it hasn’t been used in that capacity. It’s just only been used as a restroom.”
The main issue with the building is how it’s located, he said.
“It is sunken down,” he said. “It’s almost not feasible to renovate it and get it to ADA compliancy. After looking at it and listening to architects and engineers and realizing it’s just not feasible, that’s when we made the determination we couldn’t rehab it and we needed to bring in something new.”
The demolition is part of a $130,000 project to replace the restroom with a new prefabricated structure that will be installed on the south side of the park between the playground and wading pool. Installation of the new restroom is expected to begin this spring.
The project is funded by the city’s half-cent sales tax fund.
“We’ve received feedback from the community that it’s very difficult to have multiple children playing on the playground and one has to use the restroom and it’s so far away,” Hassenstab said. “We took those comments, and that’s why we chose to locate it right off the trail there. That’s kind of the reason behind the demo and then the new install at a different location.”
The Heartwell Park restrooms were among Hastings parks restrooms that were closed briefly over the summer in 2021 due to vandalism. Hassenstab said the vandalism included human waste, used drug paraphernalia, excessive littering and destruction of bathroom dispensers.
“That poses challenges,” he said. “The new restrooms will have the automatic locking mechanisms like we have at (Lake Hastings).”
The new restroom will have a fresh new look and be completely ADA-compliant.
The new Heartwell Park restroom building will be smaller than the prefabricated restrooms erected at Lake Hastings.
Hassenstab said any similarities in appearance between the new Heartwell Park restroom, with faux stone exterior and natural colors, and the one just torn down are a coincidence.
Of the $130,000 project cost, the restrooms are under contract for $101,000. Demolition will be about $13,000.
Utility relocations for the new building will make up the balance.
The intent is to save some of the building itself to incorporate into a future Parks and Rec Department project, but Hassenstab wasn’t sure yet exactly what form that would take.
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