Village Park Master Plan

The Village of Sussex engaged in an extensive master planning process for their large, main public community park. This park is in the heart of the community and hosts numerous important events throughout the year, including old car and antique tractor shows, 4th of July fireworks, Lion’s Days Festival, baseball tournaments and other civic events. This diverse park also offers users active and passive recreational opportunities, including disc golf, walking trails, baseball, connection to a County bike trail system, tennis and picnicking.

raSmith was hired to conduct a series of design charrettes and a visioning session for the four main phases of the master plan to assist the stakeholders, user groups and park board members in resolving and visualizing several design issues throughout main areas of the park. Various user groups and citizens were invited to participate in the 3D visioning sessions; several key factors were identified that impacted the park’s design.

These sessions led to a series of designs within a design, which included four key park areas: a recreational core, an event core, trails and open space, and a quad baseball diamond complex. Each of these four main areas had a significant impact on the other three, so the charrette process helped flesh out many of the spatial relationships and programming issues that needed to be resolved before presenting the project and budget to the Village of Sussex Park Board.