Percheron Park, Swede Run Projects Making Progress

Construction of Percheron Park—the pocket park at the corner of Main and High streets—likely won’t begin until the spring, according to project volunteer Julie Maravich.

She said remediation of the site, former location of Ward’s Automotive, will have to continue through September and October. She pegged the groundbreaking at sometime next spring.

In the meantime, Maravich said, the Friends of Percheron Park have started to receive renderings from artists interested in designing and creating the park’s bronze Percheron horse statue, which is about $90,000 worth of the nearly $200,000 project.

On the other side of town, the Swede Run Barn restoration project continues to inch toward completion, with volunteer Dave Schill hard at work finishing the door jambs, Maravich said. The front door jamb has been installed, and the back is expected to follow soon.

Once the jambs are in, the new doors can be installed and “that’s pretty much it,” said Maravich. She’s hoping all that can be done by this winter so they can remove the fence and reopen the historic building.

Both Swede Run and the Percheron Park project are still in need of donations.

You can contribute to the Friends of Percheron Park through their website.