Half a one, at least. But half at least is something when you've already been waiting 12 years.

"I'm very optimistic," said Page McCullough, who lives in the Northgate Park neighborhood and called on the city council earlier this fall to get the project moving.

"Did we approve any kind of a plan for Northgate Park?" asked Mayor Bill Bell.

"Neighbors are frustrated," said council member Mike Woodard.

Some frustration will get relieved "fairly soon," said Beth Timson, planning head in the city parks department. Money's in hand, one contract let and another due for signing and sealing in early February, she said this week. Work on the park is supposed to start as soon as Ellerbe Creek's restoration there is done, and that's actually finishing up a little ahead of schedule.

Before "the old girl" -- as McCullough termed Northgate Park -- turns 70, she should have a new playground; a repaired greenway; a sidewalk in place of the path strollers and joggers have worn along Acadia Street; and a mid-park picnic shelter where the roof doesn't leak.

"We're getting some real essential things," McCullough said.

All in all, it's about $680,000 worth of fixup; which leaves, said Timson, only about $612,000 on the "wish list."

'Lengthy process'

Northgate Park is just the latest case of delays in renovations. In 1996, Durham voters approved a $20.4-million bond issue that included almost $5 million for upgrades at dozens of inner-city parks.

City parks and recreation staff had already met with the neighbors.

"What would we like to see?" said Cheryl Shiflett, a past neighborhood-association president. What residents thought they heard was, "'We're going to give you what you want.'

"That was the last we heard," she said.

The 1996 bonds didn't go far enough to reach all 34 parks. Personnel changed. Construction regulations changed. Meantime, material and construction costs skyrocketed and what didn't get fixed then just needed more by 2005, when voters approved a $38 million bond issue for parks and recreation.

Northgate Park got $314,000 -- but by the time park planners added up its needs and wishes the price tag was more than $925,000.

Time passed; there was reorganization at City Hall, and the stream restoration came into the Northgate mix. City staffers scrounged for money to augment what the bonds provided, getting some from one fund, some more from another. Plans were drawn. Plans were re-drawn. The original project was split into Phase 1 and Phase 2.

"It's a lengthy process," Timson told city council. "As you work through a budget, things are changed."

A lot to talk about

Part of the process appears to be over. Last week, Northgate Park residents sat down with the parks department, the general-services department and other involved segments of the city structure, and proceeded with a meeting of the minds.

"We're vaguely seeing the outlines," McCullough said.

"It was a good meeting. ... When you have a project like this, it's really hard since it's not clear all the departments get together and think it through."

That, for the moment, takes care of Phase 1. The neighborhood has a get-together next week to talk about Phase 2.

There are those stone gateposts, signature of the park's New Deal-era pedigree.

"They're going to fall apart," McCullough said.

There's a strip of pavement -- once part of Acadia Street -- blocked off years ago and spruced up with concrete planters. The planters were torn out years ago, leaving gravelly bare rectangles in the asphalt, which is in pretty sad state in general.

There is the larger picnic shelter, with its worn tables and water-damaged roof and decrepit restrooms -- and what to do about those is problematic because the park lies in a floodplain, and what the law allows and doesn't allow in a floodplain is kind of complicated.

And security lights along the sidewalks where people jog and mothers push strollers ...

And the $611,811 that's listed on the city's Capital Improvement Plan to pay for Phase 2 has a source just called "unidentified."

And the money to keep the newly improved Northgate Park in shape ...

"We are discussing a lot," McCullough said.