There was a time when strangers knew they were about to enter Rocky Point. They passed under a gateway of colorful blocks with the name proclaimed in equally colorful, jauntily juxtaposed letters. It was a fitting entrance for the amusement park. You knew what to expect.

Other than a sign at the intersection of Warwick Neck and Rocky Point Avenues there is no indication of the more than 120-acre park that has become a space for public events ranging from National Night Out to Movies in the Park, offering a fishing pier, beaches, rocks to climb and explore, fields to fly kites, a place to walk and walk the dog and a place to feel the breeze, see the bay and enjoy open space.

The city has won a $4 million federal earmark grant that would dramatically change the entrances to the park and applied this month for a Municipal Resiliency Program (MRP) grant from the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank to cover the city’s $800,000 share of the overall Rocky Point Gateway Project.

Mayor Frank Picozzi said Monday the project is far greater than providing gates to the park as it addresses drainage, walkways and pedestrian safety on entering and leaving the park.

In a letter of support of the grant, the Rocky Point Foundation, a nonprofit organization that was instrumental in promoting and supporting a 2010 state bond issue that enabled purchase of the lion’s share of the park for nearly $10 million from the US Bankruptcy Court reads, the park, “suffers from not having welcoming and accessible entrances.”

The letter points out that the Rocky Point Foundation has engaged with the public, design professionals and government officials regarding the design and development of amenities at the park.  In particular the letter notes the foundation hosted a large scale design charrette at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet and co-hosted a design workshop and lecture series with the Rhode Island School of Design over park plans. Foundation members also met with city planning officials and the DEM on several occasions to review and discuss details for the gateway project.

Acting as the receiver, the court sold about 41 acres of the park, consisting largely of the shoreline to the city in 2007 for $4.4 million that was made possible through a $2.2 million grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, $1.4 million from the Department of Environmental Management and $800,000 in city open space funds. The Rocky Point Foundation was formed soon after to save the remaining acreage from development for condominiums and apartments.

At that time a parking lot adjacent to the former park entrance was built. It is still used and enables access to the park from a road that parallels the former saltwater pool, which has been filled in, to the south and the Rock Point arch to the north. Not until the state acquired the remaining park parcel and demolished the Palladium, Windjammer and other park structures, leaving the arch, skyliner towers and another ride tower, did the former park exit on Palmer Avenue become another access. It opened what had been the amusement park parking lot and enabled visitors to drive into the park center. Those two accesses are the subject of the gateway project.