Longmont park brings diverse recreational activities

LONGMONT – Ask a businessperson to define quality of life, and you’ll hear various perspectives on personal and professional life balance – it can mean equal allotment for family time and boardroom time and attention to balancing work with play.

Longmont is helping people meet these quality-of-life basics by creating a setting that’s designed to promote personal connections, outdoor activities and fun.

Through a series of phases, Longmont has been developing Sandstone Ranch Community Park over the past four years. The most recent addition includes a wheels park, an adventure playground and additional shelters for picnics and gatherings.

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Sandstone Ranch, about two miles east of Main Street at the intersection of Highway 119 and County Line Road, sits on more than 300 acres.

The latest section, phase three, opened in June.

“We involved citizens of Longmont on the project from the beginning of design through construction,´ said Bill Paul, Longmont’s park supervisor.

Community interest leaned heavily toward building what Don Bessler, director of parks, open space and public facilities, calls a wheels park rather than a skate park.

The 18,000-square-foot section accommodates bicycles, roller blades and skateboards.

“We don’t just show up and build things like this,” Bessler said. “We used community-based design, inviting special interest groups, youth, neighbors and community to master-plan the park.”

The wheels park includes both street elements and in-ground elements. Ramps, steps, handrails, obstacles and two concave bowls provide options for rollers of all skill levels.

“We hired a wheels consultant to design the wheels park,” Bessler said. “He’s a skateboard guru who’s been involved in skateboarding for many years and so has insights on what works well and what doesn’t.”

Adjacent to the wheels park is an adventure playground.

“The playground highlights Longmont’s early development roots of agriculture – so the theme is farm animals,” Paul said.

It includes slides, rope walks and a spray ground – a concrete surface with water jets.

“It’s like a fancy sprinkler system for kids,” Paul said.

The adventure park caters to toddlers and young children, according to Bessler. “But it’s not the typical catalog equipment items,” he added. Components include a climbing wall, a tree house, a variety of mazes and fossil digging.

Phase one development of Sandstone Ranch happened four years ago. It includes four baseball and softball fields on about 17 acres. Phase two, which happened two years ago, developed a combination soccer- and football-field complex that spreads out on about 35 acres.

“Both phases one and two have their own concessions stands, restroom facilities, picnic tables, playgrounds and parking lots,” Paul said. “Part of phase three was the construction of a group picnic shelter that can accommodate 100-plus people. It has its own restroom facility, picnic tables and charcoal grills.”

During phase three’s grand opening ceremony, 500 hotdogs were handed out.

“The park is busy all the time,” Paul added. “There are about 1,500 kids in youth baseball, about 2,500 kids in soccer and about 30 different adult soccer teams.”

Whereas the entire Sandstone Ranch Park sits on more than 300 acres, the developed sections total only about 80, according to Paul.

“The rest is open space – more of a natural area with walking and hiking trails that overlook the St. Vrain River,” he explained. “It’s classified as a wildlife preserve – local wildlife includes hawks, foxes, coyotes, prairie dogs, deer and snakes.”

Development of phase four has no scheduled date to begin, according to Bessler. “It may not be done for another 10 years,” he said, explaining that it will include four more ball fields. “We’re now going to begin the community-based design master plan for Clover Basin on the southwest part of town. It’ll be comparable in size to Sandstone Ranch.”

Budget for all four phases of Sandstone Ranch is $5 million.

The funding comes entirely from developer impact fees for all residential developing.

“It’s a hard, fast dollar fee based on per units,” Bessler said.

The amount changes yearly – currently it’s $4,700 per unit.

“We don’t make developers donate land, and that’s why our fee is high – we actually purchase the land,” he added. “Other places charge less because they make developers donate the land, but this way it can be shared by all developers.”

Not all the necessary funds have been raised yet. One snag is that residential development is down. The numbers are dropping from this year’s 1,500 residential units to next year’s 350 units.

“Commercial space is going well,” Bessler said. “And we make sure we have all the money collected before starting – it’s another reason why we do this in phases.

“We’re extremely proud of Sandstone Ranch Park – we think it’s a showcase for Colorado, which is known for its community parks,” he added. “When you talk to park and recreation groups across the country, Colorado is always in the top list of great centers. We’re like a Mecca of public community parks.”