Battery Park residents grilled city officials last night on the unfinished state of park restoration nearly two years after the area was devastated by a sewage-contaminated flood.

"It's unacceptable," said Ginnie Morrow, a resident and member of the Battery Park Civic Association. "Our kids are playing in the street."

Restoring the park is the last phase of recovery for the neighborhoods around Battery Park.

Last night, about three dozen people queried Sheila Hill-Christian, Richmond's chief administrative officer, and J.R. Pope, director of parks, recreation and community facilities, at a meeting in their North Side neighborhood.

Several audience members wondered when the baseball field would be completed. Residents had hoped that it would be finished by the beginning of the season.

One audience member asked tennis courts that were damaged in flooding during Tropical Storm Ernesto on Sept. 1, 2006. The park already had begun to flood after a major city sewer line collapsed during heavy rains that preceded Ernesto.

The city also is rebuilding a public restroom building ruined by the flood, installing new playground equipment and benches, moving the basketball court to the site of former tennis courts on the south side of Overbrook Road, and re-storing the baseball and football fields behind the former A.V. Norrell Elementary School.

Civic leaders say they hope the city will build an amphitheater at the lowest part of the park, replacing the basketball courts there. However, city officials say they cannot use disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to improve the park, only to restore it.

"What we're doing right now is everything that's FEMA-related," Pope said.

He said the city eventually will use local funds to make additional improvements, especially in newly acquired properties around it that flooded during Ernesto.

Seventy-two families were evacuated during the flooding.

Richmond has subsequently purchased and demolished a number of buildings on flood-prone properties that will become part of an expanded park.

Currently, Pope said, "My immediate focus is on what was in the original part of the park."

He said that barring any tropical storms or other deluges, the park should make its deadlines, including completing the ball fields by late summer.

"I think things are going well," said David Stith, who has been watching the park recover. He grew up on Overbrook Road and still owns property in the neighborhood.

His mother, Lillian Stith, is not so sure. She has lived here for more than 50 years. Does she think the park will ever be restored?

"Maybe in another 40 years," Stith said.

The city completed a major sewer line last fall to replace the nearly century-old sewer that collapsed more than 80 feet beneath a defunct municipal landfill next to Brookfield Gardens and Southern Barton Heights.

Wilder, in an update on his new Web site, reported on progress on each phase of the restoration project. He said the First Tee golf course, built on top of the closed Fells Street Landfill, will reopen as early as this week, with a formal reopening this month or next month.

Rain has delayed work on the local baseball field, which city officials had planned to be ready this spring at least for practices. Meanwhile, the Battery Park Vikings will continue to play their North Richmond Little League games at Chandler Middle School.

Pope said the city has hired a contractor to repair ruts in the football field, remove rocks and debris from construction of the pipeline, and have it ready for play in the fall.
Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or mmartz@timesdispatch.com.

Contact Linda Dunham at (804) 775-8126 or ldunham@timesdispatch.com.