New “pocket park” coming to Hardy

HARDY, Ark. (KAIT) - Hardy Mayor Ernie Rose has weeks left in office, but before his term is over, he has one more project to get started.

A pocket park, which is a smaller form of a park, will be built on the south side of Main Street.

He says this park has been on his mind for a while now.

“In 2019, when I took over office, I was informed there has been a donation made by Entergy to the City of Hardy for a pocket park to be put on Main Street,” he said. “The plan at that time was to put it here where this mural was.”

A mural was taken down due to it being unsafe, and that’s where the park will be built.

When the mural came down, some took to social media questioning the move to remove it, but the mayor says the mural hasn’t been destroyed.

“It was getting so rotten, the boards had deteriorated so bad, as you can see, it’s just not safe,” he said. “Knowing there were some people that liked the painting, we came out here and took it apart board by board, and one of the merchants came over and helped us and numbered each board as we took it down and preserved the actual painting.”

Mayor Rose said he expects work on the park to begin soon.

“I would hope that it would be done in 30-60 days,” he said.

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