New Cheney park could cost $30 million, council told

The new 50-acre Betz Park could cost $30 million, according to Ken Van Voorhis of Sherry Pratt Van Voorhis, landscape architects.

Van Voorhis and landscape designer Anne Hanenburg presented the master plan of the park to City Council on Tuesday night. Van Voorhis explained the park could be built in phases. Phase A would include the drainage area of the park, the utilities and landscaping in the southwest area of the park.

Based on current costs, this phase would cost $1.5 to $1.7 million. Since the utilities would be hooked up during this phase, it would help defray the cost of the next three phases.

Phase B would be in the southeast corner of the park and would include baseball fields, the main entrance, a parking lot and would create easy access for the next phase of the park. Phase B is estimated to cost $1.5 to 1.6 million.

Phase C is the most expensive part of the park, since it would include an outdoor water park, indoor aquatic center and a community building.

Based on the cost of building other aquatics centers throughout the state, the landscape architects estimated the cost of Phase C will be $24 to $26 million.

“It’s obviously subject to change,” Van Voorhis told the council.

The final phase would include a 200-seat amphitheater, tennis courts, basketball courts, open spaces and a picnic shelter. This phase is estimated at $1.7 to $1.8 million.

Now that the master plan of the park is completed, the city can start looking for grant money and other means to pay for the park. Van Voohis said that once the funding is there the city can start constructing the different phases of the park, one that could be a destination for people around the county.

“It’s a regional park,” Van Voorhis said.

The council also heard from Brian Jennings, community development director, who made a presentation about requiring business licenses in Cheney. The main reason the city would like to require licenses would be to capture sales tax revenue.

Jennings said educating the public about business licenses would be something the city will do for all of 2009, and presented the council a timeline for his plan. The council could hear the first reading of the ordinance by the end of January.

“It’s not assuming that this has the council’s blessing by any means,” Jennings said.

The next council meeting will be Dec. 23.