The Eureka Springs Parks and Recreation Commission has taken the first step in repairing and refurbishing historic Basin Spring Park.

At a July 12 special meeting, the commission approved a contract with McClelland Engineering for the initial surveying and analysis of the structural issues at the park. From there, a report will be developed on what is needed to fix the problems.

Scott Miskiel, parks director, told commissioners that the work will be broken up into “four tasks,” the first being educating the engineers on the history of the site.

“We will prepare a lot of that for them,” Miskiel said. “A big issue we had in this was to make sure it was consistent with site history. Obviously, [changes] will have to be approved by the historic district.”

After compiling a report on the background of the park, engineers will develop a report on the condition of the property.

“Task three is the analysis and evaluation … they’ll do a more comprehensive site plan showing what the potential problems are.”

Finally, engineers will recommend what needs to be done in order to correct whatever problems are discovered.

“That will include the recommendations of what we have to do to make it structurally sound,” Miskiel said. “Once we have all of that, then we can get to the point of a final design that is more architectural in nature.”

That step in the process is when bids will likely be requested for the structural changes the commission approves based on in put and approval from the Historic District Commission.

“[The process] will give us all the data and we can put together a workable plan … at that phase we’ll get more involved in aesthetics.”

Miskiel recently met with the Eureka Springs City Council and explained that the Basin Spring Park project would be extremely costly. Council members supported the plans and agreed that different ways would be explored to raise money for the project.

The contract approved July 12 was already in the parks commission budget.