What to do about War Memorial? Ideas for park stall on golf course
Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008
War Memorial Park’s golf course and parking leases with the nearby football stadium continue to be obstacles for residents trying to implement a consultant’s ideas to make the park attractive to more people.
Nearly a year after St. Louisbased H 3 Studio Inc. recommended trimming the 18-hole golf course or getting rid of it to make way for passive uses, Little Rock is still struggling with what to do with three different plans that came out of public hearings. The option with the fewest changes left the park mostly as is, while the most ambitious plan called for replacing the golf course with a small lake and expanding the Little Rock Zoo.
Meanwhile, Mayor Mark Stodola has touted the idea of refinancing a 1998 park bond to come up with roughly $ 1 million to add trails, relocate three of the golf course’s 18 holes and redo the park’s Markham Street entrance, Truman Tolefree, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department director, said Wednesday.
Something must be done with the park, city officials say, but exactly what is still up in the air until the golf course issue is settled.
Members of the city’s War Memorial Park Implementation Committee asked Tolefree on Wednesday to sketch several concepts of what could replace the 90-acre course while still offering tailgating space for War Memorial Stadium. The stadium has permanent easements throughout War Memorial Park for game-day and special event parking, and a lease for parking on the golf course until at least 2013.
“It puts a damper on it,” Bettina Brownstein said about the parking arrangements.
“But it’s a fact,” said Vice Mayor Stacy Hurst, who is leading the implementation team working with the Parks and Recreation Department. Between the golf course, the zoo, tennis courts and the park’s fitness center, there’s not much open space for a splash park or picnicking. The 90 acres covered by the golf course make up nearly half the park, and the course is the least used of the park’s main attractions. Yet the midtown course is popular for being a quick play compared with other golf courses in the city. “Nobody has the nerve to do anything about the golf course,” said Baker Kurris, another committee member.
“Why don’t we think about having a great stadium, or a great golf course or a great zoo or something instead of five different things ?” he asked.
Committee members said they couldn’t focus on recommending small additions to the park without knowing the golf course’s future.
“No matter what you do over here, it’s never going to have a parklike atmosphere with that much activity going on,” said Bobby Roberts, whose Central Arkansas Library System is looking to build a children’s library near the park.
“I’d say, with all due respect, sell Ray Winder Field and take the money and buy land south of Interstate 630,” said Roberts, director of the library system. Then the city can maintain the golf course while building trails and playgrounds in an area where there are no parking arrangements, he said.
Ray Winder Field has been another roadblock in planning the park’s future. The Arkansas Travelers’ exodus for a new ballpark in North Little Rock was what prompted the War Memorial Park discussion.
Some people have said the ballpark could be razed to expand the zoo, or parking for the zoo, while baseball fans want to keep the field for some type of recreational use.
The city is still working on the wording of a request for proposals that could lead to the stadium being leased or the city’s share sold.
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