GASPORT — A collaborative effort is leading to a series of upgrades at Royalton Ravine Park.
Groundwork is being laid for a music pavilion in the park to remember deceased members of the Gasport Beautification Committee.
“Everyone in the group loves music and we thought Royalton Ravine Park was good a place to put in those efforts,” committee member Jennifer Bieber said.
The 30-by-60-foot pavilion will be located at the southern end of the park and accessible from Gasport Road. It’ll be the first such venue in the town of Royalton and is the largest project ever undertaken by the beautification committee.
A music pavilion surfaced as a beautification project after the committee received donations in memory of members Debbie Babcock, who died in 2020, and Linda Drum, who died in 2021. The committee also received donations in memory of Bieber’s husband, Jesse Bieber, Royalton town historian, who died in 2022.
“Doing something that we’re so passionate about and believe in for people we loved, it makes a difference,” Bieber said.
The committee received a $10,000 grant through the Niagara River Greenway Commission in 2022, and it has received both monetary and material donations from community members, organizations and businesses, to cover the roughly $180,000 cost of pavilion construction.
Simultaneous with the music pavilion, Niagara County is undertaking a series of additional upgrades at the park.
“In conjunction with the Gasport Beautification Committee, we thought this is the right time to upgrade,” county parks commissioner Garret Meal said.
Upgrades include new parking lots, paved access roads and multiple new picnic shelters to accommodate an increasing number of visitors to the park.
“What we’ve seen over last few years since Covid is that there isn’t enough parking space,” Meal said. “The new disc golf course has generated a lot of interest and the park has been quite active… Cars have been lined up and down the road on nice weekends.”
Bieber said the engineering phase of the pavilion construction was recently completed. She hopes that the pavilion is ready to use before the end of the year.
While Meal could not provide a specific timeline for the entire project, he estimated it will take “a couple years” for all upgrades to be completed.