SPRINGDALE -- The City Council approved the name of a future park Tuesday and drainage improvement for a street.
The City Council unanimously voted to name a 120-acre park Shaw Family Park in honor of late business leader Willis Dean Shaw and his family, who donated $488,000 toward the park's creation. Willis Shaw founded Willis Shaw Express in 1938.
Park name
Shaw Family Park will feature wide open spaces, ponds, a primary trail system that moves throughout the park, a woodland trail in a forest area, a play and splash pad area, restrooms, community room, dog park, tennis courts and adult softball field with restrooms and concession area.
Source: Staff report
"The next step is to set up a public meeting so that residents can come out and look at [plans for] the park," said Mayor Doug Sprouse.
A site at the corner of Ball Road and West Downum Road in the city's northwest corner has been designated as the park's location. The location is a nature park, Melissa Reeves, the city's public relations director, said last week.
The park will have large open fields and a botanic garden feeling rather than be filled with athletic fields, Bill Mock, the Parks and Recreation director, said last week.
The city hasn't set a budget for the park yet, but Wyman Morgan, city administrative and financial services director, anticipates the park will cost between $10 million and $15 million.
City leaders hope to pay for the park with a 2018 bond issue.
Morgan thinks residents will be asked to vote on the issue in February or March next year. The park is among many projects in the bond issue, which also will likely include a criminal justice complex, new animal shelter, two to three new fire stations and road improvement, Morgan said in July.
The bond would be a continuation of a sales tax the city levied in 2004 to pay for $105 million in road improvements, Morgan said.
The council also approved drainage improvement to the area where North Lowell Road connects to Randall Wobbe Lane.
"There has been an issue with drainage on Lowell Road for some time, and Multi-Craft approached the City Council last week at their committee meeting with an offer to team up to fix the drainage program," Reeves said.
Sprouse said that part of Lowell Road has had flooding problems. He said sidewalk improvements will also be made.
The city's contribution to the project will not exceed $239,563, according to the resolution in the meeting's agenda packet.
NW News on 09/27/2017