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Kennedy School Park to get upgrades Friday Feb 24, 2017 at 2:32 PM Feb 24, 2017 at 3:37 PM Buffy Pollock for the Mail Tribune Improvements to a neighborhood park coveted by walkers and soccer players in northeast Medford should begin soon after bids are opened next month and see completion sometime this summer. Kennedy School Park is set to receive new walking paths and a parking lot that will connect the space to Springbrook Road. Bids for the more than $550,000 project are being accepted until March 22. Pete Young, Medford parks planner, said the recent realignment of Springbrook was a crucial component for the upgrades to the park. While it is heavily used by neighborhood walkers, kids on bikes and youth sports teams, the small city park has long been plagued with standing water and limited parking, Young said. "We've had some land north of the park for years that we weren't able to develop, but we knew that the alignment of Springbrook was going to happen and things were going to get rearranged, and then we would be able to build a parking lot," Young said. The parking lot will be connected to Springbrook and the work will tie the park area into a storm-drain system to improve drainage. In addition to the parking lot, which will absorb the bulk of project costs, the park will get new lighting, asphalt pathways, a picnic shelter, landscaping, irrigation and swing sets. Re-doing the pathways will help alleviate problems with standing water and instead move it toward storm-water collection areas, Young said. "This park gets a lot of use in soccer season," said Young. "The littlest kids tend to be there practicing. It's not one of our organized sports kind of spaces, but what we found is this is exactly what residents wanted the park to be used for. "There's a shortage of places people can walk from their homes and meet their neighbors to walk or let their kids ride their bikes." Young said construction would begin sometime in June or July. — Buffy Pollock is a freelance writer living in Medford. Email her at [email protected].