Tallahassee’s Forgotten Parks: J. Lee Vause Park

In Northwest Leon County, located on the North Shores of Lake Jackson there is a Park maintained by Leon County Parks and Recreation. An incredibly beautiful 26 acres, with a Florida Birding Trail, 6 picnic pavilions, a mile of hard surface paths for bikes and hikers, boardwalks, playground, sand volleyball court and restrooms. The Leon County Parks photos on their website don’t do this area justice. The LCP&R photos are old, and many improvements have been made since they were taken. These photos were taken October 3, 2011.

Entrance to J. Lee Vause Park, 6024 Old Bainbridge Road, Tallahassee, FL 32303

Interior of the park

Sand Volleyball court with co-ed net height. Picnic tables located in shaded corner (lower right).

Park roadway viewed from picnic pavilion

Playground located adjacent to pavilion

One of the picnic pavilions

Smaller picnic pavilion near the playground

Comments

Stormwater Bioswale Failure

There are a lot of great designers out there offering workable ideas for stormwater treatment and control. Parking lot bioswales (depressed areas to treat and/or control storomwater runoff are a great example of their thinking. This is only one example: With anything, once it's built, it requires maintenance to function properly. The permitted facility shown below is rather new (around a year old) and it's intended function is already significantly impaired. Here' is what sometimes happens: Outlet structure blocked by debris and dead plant material. Landscaping/sod has died and sides are eroded.

Avoiding Pedestrian Hazards in Parking Lots (2) Landscape Strips

This local landscape strip in the parking area exhibits several flaws. The area is too narrow for the selected tree species (Live Oak) The topsoil within the planting area has been eroded away either by foot traffic or rainfall, or both There is no mulch around the tree to aid in moisture retention. It is possible that the soil is so compacted that the roots must surface to get the oxygen needed to survive. A path is not provided between areas separated by the landscape strip, making traversing an area like this, with exposed roots, hazardous to pedestrians. A mitigating feature is that the planting strip is, placed at a 90 degree agnle with reference to the store entry so that pedestrians are not forced to cross the strip in order to reach the front entry. Some Suggested Design Considerations Ensure the species of tree is well suited at maturity for the space provided. Know the characteristics of the development of the root system. At ...

Ideas For Utility Screening

While finishing a recent project, we received a request from Tallahassee Growth Management to consider screening the required fire apparatus and backflow preventers from drivers on the adjacent roadway. The challenge was to find a way to make these less noticeable and still maintain the required 7-foot clearance around the equipment. BEFORE We decided to camouflage the backflow preventer by approximating the background color of the landscaping behind the units, and block the view to traffic with landscaping. We photographed the surrounding installed landscaping, then use Adobe Illustrator to match the average color with Pantone color chips. The result was presented to the Owner for approval. Covers for the irrigation and potable water backflow preventers were added. As in many construction projects, the instructions were "creatively" interpreted by the ones doing the ...

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