The Japanese-style building in Central Riverside Park has been neglected for generations, but there’s a new effort to bring it back to life.
“We really are sitting on a jewel of a building,” said Lynn Rogers, chairman of the Friends of the Kansas Wildlife Exhibit. “Something that no other community really has.”
Rogers’ group wants to transform the Riverside pagoda into a classroom for the wildlife exhibit, which is Wichita’s original zoo. They also envision an indoor-outdoor space that people could rent for birthday parties or family reunions.
“There is no picnic place or building anywhere in the park where people can gather,” said Rogers, a former lieutenant governor and longtime resident of Wichita’s Riverside neighborhood. “We want to make it much more usable.”
The project is expected to cost about $200,000, so the group is on a fundraising mission. It has raised about two-thirds of the total so far.
Zadi Owens is programming chair for the Friends of the Kansas Wildlife Exhibit. She says Riverside Park hosts thousands of schoolchildren every year. But sometimes, it’s not so welcoming.
“Kids from all over the state come here with school,” Owens said. “If their teachers come in from western Kansas and it’s rained and they don’t have a blanket, the kids literally eat lunch on the buses.
“I think as a city we can do better than that.”
The pagoda was built in 1911 as a concession stand, designed by Wichita architect William Springfield. Like many architects of his day, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Springfield was inspired by the curves and peaks of Japanese design.
“In a quaint style peculiar to the Land of Cherry Blossoms,” one early newspaper article described it.
A few years later, the pagoda was turned into restrooms for the park. Starting in 1938, it was closed and used for storage.
And that’s pretty much the way it stayed, with the exception of four years in the 1960s, when it was renamed the Children’s Pagoda and used as part of the campaign to build the Sedgwick County Zoo.
These days, the pagoda is boarded up and deteriorating. Inside are traffic cones and rolled up garden hoses, loose straw and random campaign signs pulled from the park.
Rogers said the renovation will include new windows, doors and roof. The pagoda will once again have restrooms and a kitchen area for serving food.
“Citizens have stepped forward and wanted to contribute anywhere from $100 to $40,000,” Rogers said. “We still have about $75,000 to go to turn it around and get it done.”
Donors who contribute $1,000 or more will have their name memorialized in the pagoda, he said.
The project will host an ice cream social and fundraiser from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday at the park. For more information on the project or how to donate, go to kwefriends.org/pagoda-project.
Construction is set to begin later this summer, with a grand opening scheduled for next summer. Rogers says it’s an ambitious goal, but better than the alternative.
“If we don’t do something now, the next thing … would be to tear it down because other than storage, there’s not a real high use for it,” he said.
“We see a much brighter future for this building.”
