Palisade demolishing Riverbend Park bathroom

By DAN WEST

Dan.West@gjsentinel.com

The town of Palisade is planning to demolish its bathroom at Riverbend Park prior to the start of this year’s festival season.

The Palisade Board of Trustees gave the town the thumbs up to move forward with the demolition at its Tuesday meeting. Parks, Recreation and Events Director Troy Ward said the bathroom has seen significant vandalism.

“It’s kind of an ongoing battle,” Ward said. “For whatever reason, restrooms that have running water have a tendency to have people linger and congregate and do things in there that are not suitable for other people to see.”

Ward said the bathroom’s pump is in disrepair and at the end of its life. He said the bathroom itself is in “rough shape” and that portable bathrooms are available in the park for people to use.

“The restroom itself, we’re asking to be able to (demolish) it this year before the festival season begins,” Ward said. “We’ll demo it, we’ll grade it and have just a flat clean surface in that area. The festival folks have requested this. They’d like to have that space available for additional tents, vendors, that sort of thing.”

The town does plan to replace the bathroom with a vault-style toilet near the pond on the eastern side of Riverbend Park, Ward said. The new toilets are scheduled to be constructed in the fall of 2025, according to the board packet.

“What we’re thinking is when we redo the pump house by the pond in Riverbend that we would have a vault-style toilet in that area that we would then have our septic services come and pump out,” Ward said.

Ward said other municipalities around the state have closed similar bathrooms because of vandalism issues. He said, for the time being, portable toilets are an easier solution for Riverbend Park and the town’s festivals, like the Palisade Peach Festival and Colorado Mountain Winefest.

“After the amount of vandalism that we’ve had and the gross things that have been in there, we’ve just gone to the (portable toilets) because they are serviceable continuously,” Ward said. “Every day we were having something that was happening in the park. It just got to the point where, like Grand Junction and other municipalities, they’re closing these types of restrooms, especially when they are facilities that are out of sight and out of mind.”