LONGMEADOW – Two green spaces in Longmeadow, Bliss Park and Laurel Park, will soon be receiving a face lift with sustainability in mind.

The Conway School of Landscape Design in Northampton has contracted with the town and its students will spend their spring semester designing a sustainable landscape plan.

“They’re putting together a master plan, which will be for both parks,” Longmeadow Town Manager Lyn Simmons said. “We’re looking forward to working with the Conway School and seeing what they come up with.”

Project Manager Kristin Thomas told Reminder Publishing that the students will have 12 weeks to work on the project, from April 13 to the end of June. She said the first phase consists of a “very extensive analysis of the site.” The team will research the history of the land, its ecology and how the public uses the park. She said they will mainly focus on the “areas surrounding the waterway, the wildlife, the plant communities, what’s working and what’s not.”

After meeting with the community at a forum on April 28 at 7 p.m. at the Longmeadow Adult Center, the students will begin the second phase of the project, sketching preliminary designs that will address the park’s needs.

Those designs will be submitted to a panel of professionals, including an ecologist, landscape architect and a planner, as well as town officials.

Residents will have a chance to weigh in on the plans at a second forum, after which the students will incorporate all the feedback and put together a final design. The finished plan will be a collection of 15 to 30 pages of documents, mostly sketches. There will, however, be preliminary cost estimates and material recommendations.

The Conway School has experience with projects of this scope. It works with municipalities on about half of its projects, Thomas said. The projects done in the spring semester are 50 acres or larger, making them good candidates for town projects. Other organizations that the school works with include colleges, farms, parks, rail trails, non-profits, and residential and commercial properties.

The land the school is focussing on in Longmeadow has a long history.

“These parks were originally created as a watershed, beginning in 1895, for the Town of Longmeadow water supply,” said Fran Cress, a member of Longmeadow Citizens To Save Our Parks (LCSOP) who has worked to protect the land. Much of Cooley Brook, once collected in a manmade reservoir and stored in a water tower, is now invisible to residents, running underground and eventually emptying into the Connecticut River.

After LCSOP defeated a proposal to locate the new Longmeadow Adult Center on a portion of the site in 2016, the group was successful in establishing protection for the area under MGL ch. 97.

Cress reached out to the Conway School, which her daughter had previously attended, over a year ago, but Thomas said the project hit its stride in the last two or three months. The master plan from the school is funded by community preservation funds that were approved at the May 2019 town meeting.

Cress hopes that residents will come to the April forum to discuss the future of the parks and contribute their ideas.

“It is an opportunity for citizens to play a critical part in preserving our history and these parklands,” Cress said. “It is important for citizens to express their interests to planners so the plan reflects their input and helps us preserve this wonderful legacy for the enjoyment of all in the years to come.”