Parks On The Water, Expansion Area?

The idea of building a park or sections of a park over water is nothing new. pier parks span our amusement park history and even some lakes and ponds have seem parks, rides, or small area build over them. here we can discus that idea featuring New England parks.

This discussion was started @Lifthill in the LC thread and I thought it could be a good conversation point so here is an individual thread to talk about the idea.

previous posts

Canobie and Quassy is in a strange situation were as the water fronts they are built upon are neighboring their property. As water front owners they have a right to access for a beach this is refereed to at riparian rights. pier or wharf would be allowed and in some cases are covered to a point by the riparian rghts.. The state owns all and under the water with the federal government fallowing behind is a manner to protect the water system. LC is different since the body of water is wholey owned by the park.

LC
The park's Lake/pond is around 26 acres with the water used for swimming there are no local or state restrictions on the lakes use that I know of. The lake is most accessible from the front and the back with noise issues with any use to the back of the property.

Quassy
The park is built along the shores of Lake Quassapaug. The lake is 296 acres of which Quassy has only 921ft of frontage. 520 of which is used for the water park. There is only a small area that could be considered of which the park already features a boat ride and paddle boats. The parks water fornt site at one of the most open areas of the lake.

Canobie
The park is build along the eastern shores of Canobie Lake. The lake is 375 acres of which The park has 2,186ft of frontage. 385 ft of which is bordered by recognized wet lands or elevated water park. The entire stretch is lined by a retaining wall that was built out in the late 90's to rehab the train line. The park also rebuilt and extended the peir and doc a few years back. of the 1,8001 remaining ft of frontage, 838 is blocked off by the train loop, skating rink(haunted houses), Boston Tea Party, Dance hall and portfalinos. Another 280 ft boarder the picnic grove which boarders housing leaving only 2 open lots. Important note is that the lake is used for public drinking water and swimming is not allowed.

Lot 1 is 150 between castaway island and and the new train loop. houses are locate across the narrow inlet of the lake and to the south border of the lake the neighboring shore line is 930ft form the parks shores. The second lot is 170ft, the same location of the current boat pier which sits at he far end of the lot. Shore to shore this area is nearly 1,850 ft wide bu the Fireworks barge operates 530 ft out.

Sadly no other New England parks operate along ponds or lakes. SFNE is build along the river but a strong current and often changing water levels would make any construction over it ill advised.

Building elevated ride pads over water is a nice idea and looks nice, but you can't build a ride on a "floating dock", you need a legitimate elevated ride pad and a lot of the time it's a lot more expensive and just not worth the cost. In most states you need special permission and permitting to even go near water with an attraction, and when you go to build it, and after the weeks/months/years it could take to get your approval, you need special steel (or wood) that won't corrode in the water. On top of that, it needs to be constructed in a certain way according to whatever kind of material is on the bottom of the body of water (if its loose and/or sandy, you have to build differently than if the bottom is more hard and/or rocky), etc. That can get expensive, especially driving piles and a using whole lot of structural steel/wood/concrete. For a lot of small parks, it just easier and more cost effective to throw down a quick concrete pad and build on land.

Your right this is really just a Pipe dream on paper. But half the talk on the site is generally a wish list.

I would also imagine for any pr to do this they would need to use a concrete foundation over wood. Something that could have a drainage system built in to prevent anything from getting into the water.