By Lee Weyhrich
The Pinson City Council on Tuesday voted to approve the first phase of its city park project.
The first phase includes a maintenance building, event center with restrooms, a septic tank, amphitheater, playground equipment, a frisbee disc golf course, lighting, landscaping, and all the surveying.
The first phase will cost an estimated $1.02 million. A possible alternate — a splash pad — would cost an additional $100,000.
The event center itself comes with a $398,475 price tag. The next largest aspect of the first phase is the amphitheater, which is expected to cost nearly $200,000 for all it includes. The maintenance building will cost $100,000.
There is no set date for the beginning of the project, though it is expected to be completed within 15 months.
Mayor Hoyt Sanders said the approval was an authorization for architectural firm Goodwyn Mills & Cawood for the design as it has been presented with an input on phasing authorization.
The city park will be located near Center Point Parkway between Sweeney Hollow Road and Glen Brook Road in Pinson.
Phase I was originally to include parking, roads, a maintenance building, an event center with restrooms and an office, playgrounds, a disc golf course and other amenities such as lighting, landscaping and infrastructure. The first phase was originally estimated at $828,777.06. The council said last month it would actually like to increase the scope of this project to around $1 million.
Funding the project should not be an issue, Sanders said last month. The mayor estimates a $1 million loan to have a monthly payment between $5,000 and $6,000.
The park’s plans were released last month, and the cost of the three-phase project could amount to more than $1.8 million over the course of several years.
In plans released last month, the second phase included a splash pad adjacent to the event center with easy access to the showers built in the first phase. A park ranger office, a veterans’ memorial, additional walkways, a dog park, a secondary entrance gate from Glenn Brook Road, overflow parking and additional lighting would also be included in this phase. Total cost of Phase II is an estimated $468,000, assuming changes are not made to the plans.
The final phase of the project, encompassing an amphitheater and open air pavilion, a bridge over Dry Creek leading to the community center and more landscaping and lighting, is estimated to cost an additional $582,000. The pavilion alone is estimated at $254,240.