For decades, Marsh Park has been the city’s fishing lake, and it had once been a pay-lake. In recent years, it’s allowed certain non-motorized boats on the water, though swimming is not permitted. It stocks the lake with fish every year, and there are limits on how much fish can be taken from the lake (rules and fishing limits are posted on a kiosk next to the bait house). Since 2017, approximately 11,500 pounds of fish have been stocked at Marsh Park at various intervals, depending on species.
“Nothing would please me more than to develop that lake to its fullest,” said Fairfield Mayor Mitch Rhodus, who had been the chair of the planning commission when the park was expanded in the 1990s.
The park, which the city first acquired in August 1978, has expanded multiple times since then and is now nearly 140 acres with 60 acres of it being lake water at varying depths. The expansion was due to the discontinued gravel-mining operations of Martin Marietta, which deeded over the entire property nearly a decade ago after mining it for more than a half-century.
Marsh Park is a fishing lake named for former Fairfield mayor Thomas O. Marsh, and the natural spring-fed lake has thousands of feet of accessible shoreline and is home to a variety of fish, including catfish, trout and largemouth bass. Until 2020, it was a pay-lake, but the city, in order to encourage more outdoor recreation during the height of the COVID pandemic made it free. They still have limits on how many fish can be removed, and largemouth bass is strictly catch-and-release.
Fairfield’s plan to develop the park would be by accentuating and expanding some of its features, including its internal loop and connecting the park to the Great Miami Recreation Trail, which now stops at the city’s Waterworks Park. In October, the Ohio Kentucky Indiana Regional Council of Governments approved more than $750,000 in funds to extend the Great Miami River Trail from Waterworks south through Marsh. This extension is scheduled for construction in 2027 and will connect the trail south to the roundabout at River and Gray roads, giving the city the ability to further expand the trail to FurField Dog Park.
Fairfield City Manager Scott Timmer said in coordinating the OKI grant, the city has plans to complete the internal loop around Marsh Park. The city would like to include a bridge to cross some of the lake area. Timmer said the city is seeking funding through the biennial state capital budget and met with Reps. Jennifer Gross and Sara Carruthers, and Sen. George Lang.
This renewed effort to develop a plan for Marsh will be built off a concept plan done in 2016, highlighting possible features for the facility. This latest development plan will eventually include a final concept and implementation schedules, Timmer said.
The plan would draw from a review of the existing park infrastructure but evaluate current plans that include Marsh Park’s future, such as the Fairfield Forward Comprehensive Plan and the city’s connectivity plan. But it would also include community engagement, and evaluating what neighboring communities are doing in terms of recreational offerings as “nearby populations that may want to access Fairfield parks and amenities,” Timmer said.
In February, the city awarded a contract to Designing Local, Toole Design and Burgess and Niple to complete the Final Marsh Park Master Plan. Designing Local is taking the project lead role and anticipates this project will require approximately six months to complete, and started this month. Part of the plan will include community engagement.
Fairfield Parks Board Chairman Doug Meece said Marsh Park through COVID drove the point home as to the value of the parks.
“I think the big issue is we’ve seen a lot of change with the park and the property, and I think some people like change and some people don’t,” said Meece.
As Designing Local is helping with the master plan, he said it’s been part of the previous long-term conversation to develop that River Road corridor with more recreational opportunities, including a possible canoe or boat launch adjacent to FurField Park.
“We’re in a transition period with the property,” Meece said, adding that they need to make sure the area is planned out with intention as “we don’t want to piecemeal it.” “We’re kind of looking at all the options, what makes the most sense, what gives people the most recreational opportunities.”
It’s taken a while to get to this point from 2016 as there has been quite a bit of turnover, including multiple city managers and parks directors, as well as elected officials.
Mash Lake Park Ambassador Marc Conter said the park and lake for many of the neighboring residents “is a retreat” and, “the residents around it are blessed living year-round in their ‘lake house.’”
But he said over the years, he feels Marsh has been overlooked, and with the development discussions, doesn’t want to see the park turned into something overdeveloped, as he said that “is not progress.”
“Preserving it and encouraging our community and visitors to do the same is our mandate and responsibility,” he wrote in a letter posted on the Friends of Marsh Facebook group. “Education and public relations designed to nurture that appreciation will have exponential returns on investment.”
Rhodus, who doesn’t fish, said this has been a project close to his heart, and he enjoys walking the path and meeting the people there. “I think it’s a hidden crown jewel for us, and I think the parks department and city council need to put a concentrated effort on adding features, adding events.”
That appears to be the plan.
Overdevelopment is something Timmer also does not want to see, and there is a concerted effort to engage the public to visit Marsh Park. As Fairfield and hired consultants are looking at the back end of the Marsh Park development, the city is looking at several events.
Timmer said there are three pop-up events scheduled for June 14, July 12 and Aug. 9 and are dubbed “Fridays by the Lake,” which will include music and food trucks. Also, the city is beginning a “Fishing Adventure Camp” designed to encourage young anglers to learn about the world of fishing, nature and camaraderie. This is a three-day camp at the end of June.
But Fairfield is focused on sustainability and resource management, and Timmer said the city has engaged Jones Fish and Lake Management to conduct an electrofishing population study to monitor the lake’s fish population.
“Two biologists from Jones Fish and Lake Management are coming to the lake with boat-mounted electrofishing and fish-collecting equipment,” he said. “The data collected will be analyzed for species composition, relative abundance of each species, relative growth of species and general health of fish populations under consideration.”
This will allow a general estimated population size and health, as well as relative population levels of the various species.
“These results will indicate how well each species is performing in terms of growth rates, recruitment success and population balances,” Timmer said. “From this report, the city, in coordination with Jones Fish and Lake Management, can develop engagement strategies to improve fish populations and recreational fishing performance.”
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