Parents Say Construction Too Close To Playground

BRISTOL, Va. – Hannah Sensenig laughed and smiled from behind her purple sunglasses, swinging back and forth in the afternoon sunshine.
A few feet from the Sugar Hollow Park swing where Hannah played with her parents Thursday, workers from Thomas Construction employed heavy equipment to carve out a new roadway along the park’s western-most border.
All that separated them was a thin layer of orange, plastic fencing stretched across metal posts.
Steve and Christy Sensenig surveyed the scene and expressed concern about the work and the eventual roadway.
“We were wondering what was going on. Every time we come, they’re doing something else,” Steve Sensenig said while watching a front-end loader place material in a dump truck. “It’s a bit concerning. I’d like to know what they’re going to do to keep the kids out of the road.”
The new 3,000-foot Resting Tree Drive – scheduled to take 10 months to finish – will provide access to a planned business technology center on city-owned land north of the park.
The road’s construction prompted the relocation of the park’s playground parking area – turning that space into a mass of gravel, drainage tile and dirt, rutted by the tracks of heavy equipment.
The Sensenigs bring their children to Sugar Hollow often and worry about potential dangers.
“They need to put up some type of fence like they have around the outfield of the ballfield around the playground. A split-rail fence would not be enough,” Steve Sensenig said.
There won’t be a split-rail boundary, but a temporary, chain-link fence is scheduled to go up soon, Bristol City Engineer Jack Hurlbert said.
“Once it’s [road] done, there will be a metal fence – four and half feet high – that will meet all the child protection requirements,” Hurlbert said. “It will have vertical slats to discourage climbing.”
Lisa Hunter of Glade Spring, who also visited the park Thursday, expressed more concern with the eventual roadway.
“If it’s fenced it should be alright,” Hunter said.
Hurlbert said there will be no connection between the park and Resting Tree Drive.
“That was one of the stipulations imposed by TVA as a condition for the easement,” Hurlbert said. “There would be no intermingling of traffic from Resting Tree and recreational uses.”
The $3.3 million project includes altering the Lee Highway intersection with Mount Vernon Drive and installing a traffic signal near the former Sugar Hollow entrance.
Construction crews recently relocated the main entrance eastward near a traffic signal that serves The Highlands retail center.

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