Summer Shape Up at Mackle Park

Dog owners rejoice! The City of Marco is investing in its popular dog park, Canine Cove.

One of the big improvements is the fencing at the park.

“We replaced the center fence and the gates with it at the dog park,” said Martha Montgomery, Fleet and Facilities Supervisor for the city. “We also replaced the fence that separated the small dog park from the large dog park.”

They also figured out how to fix a problem at the park.

"We replaced it because the old fence stopped a couple inches from the ground,” Montgomery said. “The dogs would dig and they'd go back and forth from one side to the other. What we did was bury this fence a foot into the ground.”

The project was budgeted at $15,000, but Montgomery expects the final numbers to be closer to $12,000.

Fleet and facilities management team members were busy Friday morning replacing sod at the dog park and adding mulch throughout.

“We did the sod because every year it seems like the number of dogs in the dog park doubles. We try to do the maintenance during the off-season. But we don't have much of an off-season anymore."

There’s another new feature at Mackle Park that has people talking.

"There is a new Purple Martin house,” Montgomery said. "It looks just like the two at Leigh Plummer Park. The other one got destroyed in the hurricane. People really like it. Bob Vanells did the work on the Purple Martin house."

The fleet and facilities team also did some work on the basketball backboards in the airnasium.

"We revamped some of the basketball hoops,” Montgomery said, “Hector Bode did that. The difference is night and day. They look great.”

The shuffleboard and bocce ball courts are also being resurfaced this summer.

The crew is also working on fixing the fountain in the lake at Mackle Park.

"The motors went out,” Montgomery said, "so we're working on that."