New restroom facilities at Gunston Park are expected to cost around $1 million — a grand total arising from the price of materials, installation and associated costs.
County officials present the cost as a financial win for taxpayers, even if not everyone sees it that way.
“People will look at that and say, ‘a million dollars for a park restroom?’ It is a sizable chunk of money,” said Erik Beach, the park development division chief at the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation.
Beach on May 19 briefed members of the Park and Recreation Commission on park projects included in County Manager Mark Schwartz’s recently proposed 10-year, $4.3 billion capital improvement plan, or CIP.
While the restroom replacement represented just a small part of park funding proposed in the CIP, the seven-figure price tag is likely to remind some of Columbia Pike’s notorious “million-dollar bus stop” installed more than a decade ago.
But, Beach told members of the parks commission, the cost for the new restroom facility represents the cost of doing business in an inflationary era. He predicted the final cost would be about $300,000 to purchase a prefabricated structure, $250,000 to install it, plus the costs of planning, project administration, permits and utilities.
“By the time you’re done, it’s a million dollars,” he said.
Beach estimated the cost of building a structure from scratch, not using a prefabricated structure, would be closer to $1.5 million.
The existing Gunston Park restroom facility was always planned as a temporary structure, and is showing its age. In Schwartz’s CIP package, its replacement is set for the fiscal year that begins in July 2027.
Like the rest of the package, much of the CIP spending proposed by Schwartz aims to “keep up with things so they don’t cost more down the line,” Beach said.
County Board members will spend the next two months studying the CIP proposal before adopting a final plan in July. The county government typically updates the package in two-year increments.
As part of the package, Schwartz has proposed a $34.9 million bond referendum this November for parks. It is one of five local referendums, totaling nearly $250 million, that Board members and the Circuit Court are being asked to place on the ballot.
County Board salutes chair of parks commission, award recipient: County Board members on May 19 honored the service of Park and Recreation Commission chair Jill Barker, whose term expires on May 31.
“I’ve loved being in this position,” Barker said at the event.
She has served on the commission for the past six years and has chaired it for several of them.
At the same meeting, Board members honored Noreen Hannigan for her selection as the annual Bill Thomas Park Volunteer Award recipient.
An awardee is nominated annually by the Park and Recreation Commission, and is ratified by the County Board.
Hannigan “has made broad, deep and lasting contributions to Arlington,” Park and Recreation Commission member David Earley said at the Board meeting.
“She has been a cornerstone of our parks, nature centers and native-plant nurseries, from physical labor to high-level policy support,” Earley said.
