All sidewalk spaces for memorial plaques at Kenai’s Leif Hansen Memorial Park have been sold or reserved. That’s according to Kenai City Clerk Jamie Heinz, who reported that all plaques were spoken for during a July 7 meeting of the Kenai City Council.

The memorial park, located near Louie’s Steak & Seafood between Kenai Spur Highway and Frontage Road, is named for the son of Peter Hansen, a Kenai doctor who died earlier this year. Leif Hansen died in a drowning accident in Seward in 1986.

Kenai Parks and Recreation Director Bob Frates told the Clarion earlier this year that Peter Hansen wanted the land the park now sits on to serve as a memorial park where people can go to remember and honor their loved ones.

Since the park was first established, sidewalks have been added to accommodate the purchase of memorial plaques and a fountain, for which the Hansen family donated the necessary funds.

The announcement comes as the City of Kenai also works to complete an expansion of the city’s municipal cemetery, which Kenai City Manager Paul Ostrander said earlier this year was slated to be completed at the end of the 2021 construction season.

Kenai Public Works Director Scott Curtin said earlier this week that the expansion project is still “several months out” from seeing new progress and that the city is focused on getting other projects started.

Work remaining at the cemetery includes paving the parking area and erecting a perimeter fence around the site of the expansion. Additionally, Curtin said the city needs to get the exact locations of cemetery plots numbered and located prior to those plots being sold, which will require surveying assistance the city plans to seek out later in the summer.

Heinz said last week that there are currently eight plots available for caskets, 16 plots available for cremains and 90 columbarium niches available at the Kenai Municipal Cemetery.

The Kenai City Council approved a moratorium on the selling of standard cemetery plots in 2017 in response to an “extremely limited” number of available plots. That moratorium, which is still in effect, prevents the selling of cemetery plots in advance for people who are still alive.

Exceptions to the moratorium include the purchase of a plot once someone has already died. Two plots can be sold if someone dies and an immediate family member wants to purchase the adjacent plot. This typically applies to spouses.

According to previous Clarion reporting, the Kenai City Council approved $17,991 for Nelson Engineering to turn design plans into work plans in 2017. The design plans, drawn by architecture firm Klauder and Associates, describe a new burial ground on a roughly 4-acre lot opposite the cemetery on the other side of Floatplane Road.

The Kenai Municipal Cemetery is located at the intersection of 1st Avenue and Coral Street in Kenai.

Reach reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at ashlyn.ohara@peninsulaclarion.com.