Planning to begin on future wellness park

    The proposed wellness park that has been talked about for many years is one step closer to become a reality. The Washington School Board agreed to sell 90 acres of farmland north of town to the City of Washington for the purpose of constructing a wellness park. Mayor Sandra Johnson said that the city is still contemplating whether to use the 90 acres it bought for the wellness park or trade the land for property elsewhere.

    ?We may find a site better suited for our task,? said Johnson. ?I know there are people in the community who would prefer that we not have 90 acres of ag land for ball diamonds. That?s one of the criteria that we will look at when are deciding where to put the park.?

    City Administrator Dave Plyman said that the city and the school district still have to close on the property, meaning that the exact details of the payment schedule have not been finalized. The city receives $400,000 every year from the Riverboat Foundation, and the city will use this money to pay part of the cost of acquiring the property, according to Plyman. The city will pay $7,500 per acre, which means that the property alone will cost the city $675,000.

    Johnson said that the city hopes to make up the remainder of the cost through grants and donations. She said that the $400,000 the city receives from the Riverboat Foundation every year is the guaranteed minimum. All towns in the county receive some fixed amount of money every year from the Riverboat Foundation in accordance with that town?s population. Johnson said that the city will now attempt to secure additional funds from the Riverboat Foundation through grant applications. She said that raising a sufficient amount of money for the wellness park will take time.

    ?Look at how many years Wellman spent fundraising for its activities center and Kalona spent on its library,? said Johnson. ?We expect to raise the money for the wellness park through a combination of public and private contributions. We hope that people in the community with some skills will volunteer their time to the project.?

    Plyman said that the Riverboat Foundation has been very helpful for the city?s budget. He said that the city?s plan to pay for the land assumes that the Casino remains in the county over the next few years. 

    The city?s next step is to hire a design architect to evaluate the site and come up with proposals. Plyman said that the Washington Community Y sponsored a Riverboat grant a few years ago to hire a consulting firm to investigate where the wellness park should be built. He said that the engineering firm Shoemaker and Haaland performed the work at that time, and may continue to work with the city to design more specific plans.

    The Washington Area Wellness Community was formed a few years ago to bring residents together to discuss how recreational facilities in town could be improved. Angie Van Gundy was a member of that committee, and said the committee came up with a number of things the city lacked or had too little of.

    ?We talked about putting in more bike and walking trails,? said Van Gundy. ?We also talked about adding soccer fields and tennis courts.?

    Plyman said that the city is short on baseball fields, and that ball diamonds are a likely component of the new wellness park.

    ?We are underserved for baseball fields in the city,? he said. ?It is hard to make Redlinger Field accommodate all the teams that need to play on it.?

    The school soccer teams play their games on a field east of Whitesell that is owned by the company and not the city. Johnson said that soccer is a growing sport and also figures to be part of the new complex.

    ?We are not going to build this park just to meet today?s needs,? said Johnson. ?Future generations will decide what facilities are added to the park.?

    Johnson said that the construction of the park will be done in phases.

    ?I would be very pleased if we were playing ball on the new fields in five years,? she said. ?We will not have completed the whole complex by then. As funds become available, we will make additions. Look at Sunset Park. That park was developed over time, too.?

    Plyman and Johnson said that the public will be involved in helping shape the park, just as it was involved in shaping the library.

    ?We?re not going to decide how to plan everything in a conference room in one afternoon,? said Plyman.