Labyrinth proposed for City Park

The newest addition to Kingston Springs’ City Park could be a labyrinth, an intricate path that after many turns leads to a circle in the center.

Local resident Baker Giduz presented plans for a labyrinth at the Kingston Springs Board of Commissioners' monthly meeting on Jan. 24. The labyrinth would be installed in the field behind City Park’s dog park, near a waterfall on Pinnacle Hill.

Diagram of proposed labyrinth in City Park

Giduz emphasized that this labyrinth is not a maze — it’s not a puzzle to solve, with various paths that may lead to dead ends. Instead, it’s an oval with one continuous path that eventually leads you to the center and back out again after numerous turns. If you stay on this path, you will get to where you want to go.

“I use a labyrinth for meditation. It’s very relaxing,” Giduz said. “It’s about going inward — discovering who you are.”

Unlike mazes, this labyrinth would be flush with the ground, and marked with rubble strips or cobblestones. That would make it easy to mow, unlike mazes made of hedges that would be expensive to maintain.

Giduz’s proposal also calls for a few benches, one of them by the waterfall, and an informational board. He estimates the project’s cost at $4,418. He would fabricate and weld the benches and information board himself, with the city paying only for the materials. Giduz is a student at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology.

A bench would be placed near this waterfall by the labyrinth / Kent Hoover

The labyrinth could draw more people to the park and be used for educational programs, Giduz said. People have built labyrinths for thousands of years. The closest one to Kingston Springs is in the Vanderbilt area, he said.

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Mayor Tony Gross.

Vice Mayor Glenn Remick said the labyrinth could start out simply, by cutting the path with a mower and leaving taller grass on each side of the path. That would give people a chance to see what the labyrinth experience was like before the city commits money to it.

Meanwhile, the commission shot down another project. Commissioner Carolyn Clark asked city officials to look into building a crosswalk in mid-block of Luyben Hills Road, between West Kingston Springs Road and Interstate 40. City Manager John Lawless said he talked to the Tennessee Department of Transportation about it, and found the crosswalk would probably cost at least $60,000.

“I don’t personally see that fitting in the budget,” Gross said.

The crosswalk would have to be compliant with the Americans with Disability Act, Lawless said, and would require the removal of three panels of sidewalks on each side of the road — sidewalks that were only recently installed after a construction project that took over a year to complete. Ripping up these sidewalks is the last thing most commissioners want to do.

“We know how good we are at sidewalks,” Commissioner Todd Verhoven said.