Downtown riverfront park work progressing well, Fort Wayne Parks board told

By Kevin Kilbane | The News-Sentinel

One building has been razed and demolition has started remaining buildings, but negotiations still are ongoing about saving and relocating a historic brick building on the future site of Promenade Park along Fort Wayne's downtown riverfront.

The Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Department's board of park commissioners received that update Thursday during their meeting at Citizens Square.

Demolition crews can work around the historic E.M. Baltes & Co. building, which dates to about 1895, while discussions continue with a party that expressed interest in buying and moving the building to give it a new use, parks Director Al Moll told park board members.

The Baltes building currently is surrounded by other, more recently constructed buildings that once all were part of the Cambray & Associates business at 312 S. Harrison St.

To have land to build Promenade Park, the city bought the Cambray property and land containing the Ream Steckbeck paints building west of it. The park will be located on the north and south banks of the St. Marys River between the Historic Wells Street Bridge and Harrison Street.

Construction crews likely will wait until spring to begin earth work for the park, said Steve McDaniel, the parks department's deputy director of asset management. The park is scheduled for completion in spring 2019.

People can watch the progress on two webcam cameras set up along the Harrison Street bridge to record the work. To view them, go to https://app.oxblue.com/open/Hagerman/RiverfrontFtWayne.

Moll also reported the parks department had raised $5.5 million — $500,000 over goal — in donations to help pay for the first phase of riverfront development.