Southeast Community Park advances

FORT COLLINS – Work could begin on the 54-acre Southeast Community Park near Fossil Ridge High School as early as next spring.

Craig Kisling, a landscape architect with the city of Fort Collins, said Friday that parks staff and designers are hoping to start the public development process with city planners later this month after going through a concept review in July. The ultimate goal is to have the park, at the northeast corner of Ziegler and Kechter roads, completed by summer of 2017.

The park will include a pair of baseball diamonds, two soccer/multi-use fields, restrooms, shelters, a dog park, playground, orchard and community garden, all straddling the McClelland Creek that bisects the site. A BMX park that is on the land currently will be relocated but still included in the site.

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The city won’t start seeking bids for construction until spring, but the city estimates the park will cost around $7 million. That doesn’t include amenities the city partnered with the school district on when Fossil Ridge was built in the early 2000s.

The school district and the city worked together to purchase the land for the park and the school, with the city owning the land for the park. The city also helped cover the costs of the streets that access the school and will provide access to the park, as well as other infrastructure in the area. As part of that deal, two of the tennis courts at Fossil Ridge are available for public use as an extension of the park. An irrigation pond in the southeast corner of the site is used to irrigate school grounds and, eventually, the park, as well as another nearby park and elementary school grounds.

“We have a good relationship with the school district,” said Marty Heffernan, executive director for community services for the city.

Part of the park is in a floodplain. While the water in the creek did get high during last year’s September flood, Kisling said it was worse during heavy rains earlier this year, though it never actually flooded.

Civitas, a landscape architecture firm in Denver, is leading design of the park, with Fort Collins-based Ripley Design also playing a role.

Heffernan said the city builds small neighborhood parks to serve a one-mile radius. Larger community parks, like the one near Fossil Ridge, are built to serve a four-mile radius.

The new parks are funded through capital expansion fees, one-time payments made by developers of new residential neighborhoods.