BASEBALL FENCE, WALKWAY BEING BUILT IN PARK

Capaha Park is getting an early Christmas present.

A new, wooden outfield fence is being built at Capaha Field and a concrete walkway is being built around the lagoon.

Cape Girardeau Parks Department workers are building the walkway.

A concrete walkway already extends around part of the lagoon. "We are just pouring sidewalk on the rest of that and putting more riprap in there," said Dan Muser, director of parks and recreation for the city of Cape Girardeau.

"We have worked on it off and on," said Muser, who hopes to have the project completed within the next few months. "If we get bad weather, that could hold us up."

Muser said the parks department had installed concrete paving stones around part of the lagoon in past years. But the paving stones haven't held up.

"They worked loose," said Muser.

As a result, parks officials decided that it would be best to replace the paving stones with a concrete walkway. The improvements are being made on the north and west side of the lagoon.

"We've done two pours," he said.

Putting more riprap around the lagoon is an on-going maintenance project, he said.

The lagoon improvements are expected to cost a few thousand dollars, excluding the in-house labor costs.