Public provides ideas and input for east side’s Coleman Community Park
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The city of Colorado Springs is looking for the public's input on its plan to design and develop Coleman Community Park, on the city's east side.
Thursday evening the public was invited to attend a community forum at Sand Creek High School where comment was accepted. It was the second of three planned meetings and ended up being standing room only due to the number of people who showed up.
"This 70-acre Coleman Community Park project is important to a lot of people," said Connie Schmeisser, Coleman Park Project Manager. "The east side of Colorado Springs just doesn't have a large community park complex. So people are looking for a place to go outdoors, feel safe, and have lots of options of things to do."
Right now, the area is 70 acres of mostly undeveloped land, near the intersection of Tutt Boulevard and Barnes Road.
The city says the master plan for development will have three focus areas: creating an active sports hub, integrating Sand Creek and nature, and community park amenities.
3 multi-use sports fields, a fat bike course, an accessible playground, and 18 pickleball courts are just a few of the many amenities that could be coming to the future park.
One group excited about the idea of more mountain biking amenities, attended Thursday's meeting.
"Specifically for Coleman Park, we see opportunities for new mountain biking opportunities, especially in the emerging trend of paved pump tracks," said Cory Sutela, Executive Director of Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates. "So one of the options explicitly calls out a paved pump track. We recently raised money and built a dirt pump track in the Cresta Open Space, and we can really see the benefit of having a pump track within our in our community, especially on this in this part of town, which is far away from some of the other mountain biking amenities throughout the park system."
The city expects the park will be comparable to Memorial or John Venezia community parks.
Many who live near the proposed park voiced concerns about safety at Thursday's meeting.
"We're trying to let people know that when you build a park, you're activating a park, you're bringing people to the park that want to be there," said Schmeisser. "Usually, most of the time, they're doing good things. They're working out, they're playing sports, they're with their family, their kids. Usually, activation makes places a little bit safer, and that's been our general philosophy with all our park designs. We really haven't had a lot of issues in our parks, so I don't want there to be worry where there we don't have need yet.”
Regardless, the city does plan to implement safety features around the park. Those include security cameras, gates that will lock after hours, and access points for first responders if an incident or fire breaks out.
As for funding the project, the city says they're still working out a plan.
"This project is going to easily be over $30 million based upon what we're seeing right now," said Schmeisser. "So we have a lot of grants to write, and then we'll have to see where the general fund is and where other funding might come from.”
So far, no plans are finalized for Coleman Community Park. The city says its final concept will be brought to the community in another public meeting come December.
However, they are asking the public to complete their latest survey to help narrow down what will make the cut for the final concept. If you're interested in filling one out, click here. The survey will be open until October 17.
More information about the project, along with Thursday's presentation and the three concepts currently up for debate, can be found here.
