Cadillac Lake to be site of celebration for new wetland park, Wichita flag car plates

Construction is about to begin on a $7.2 million wetlands park at Wichita's Cadillac Lake, and city officials and the governor will mark the occasion with the signing of a state law authorizing Wichita flag license plates to help pay for it.

On Tuesday, the City Council selected Hutton Construction to build the first phase of the new Pracht Wetlands park at a cost of $1.7 million, funded partly from the city's capital improvement fund and partly from proceeds from the sale of the formerly city-owned Hyatt Regency Hotel downtown.

The initial money will pay to build a parking lot, trailhead and the first two legs of what will eventually be a one-third-mile circular boardwalk through the 56-acre site on the south side of 29th Street North, east of Maize Road.

On April 21, the city will mark the start of construction with a ground-breaking ceremony at the park site.

"We're also going to combine that with Gov. (Jeff) Colyer's signature of the Plates for Parks bill ... because it's kind of tied together," said council member Bryan Frye, whose district includes the park. "It will be a little community event."

Plates for Parks will allow for the sale of a specialty car-license tag bearing the Wichita city flag. Proceeds from the plate — an annual $50 per plate royalty fee — will go to the city's Park Foundation to help defray the cost of park improvements.

"This is an innovative new approach; I'm after doing things better," Colyer said. "You can develop an outdoor park that Wichita can enjoy. And I don't believe in higher taxes so this is a way that you can use revenue that you can get in a different way.

"It's voluntary and you can raise park funds and it doesn't create an unnecessary burden on the taxpayers. I like that."

The state House unanimously approved the bill authorizing the plate on Friday. It had previously been approved by the Senate and the final step is for the governor to sign it into law.

"Wichita really has a lot of pride in their city right now," Colyer said.

The Plates for Parks program "helps you develop the park system and gives citizens a way to participate in that, help develop some new parks and get license plates at the same time, have a little civic pride, have some fun," he said.

Hutton Construction is one of several local companies that have agreed to pay to have the flag plates on their fleet vehicles.

In anticipation of the construction, the city has drained Cadillac Lake so workers can place the pillars to support the boardwalk without having to get their feet wet.

"We control the level of Cadillac Lake through the pumping stations," Frye said. "We've dried it so we can do the construction work."

Colyer said it's a worthwhile project just to preserve some wildland in an urban area, with the added bonus of being close enough to the population center for people to enjoy it regularly. He also praised the Park Foundation for committing its first income from the license plates to educational programs at Pracht Wetlands.

"They want it to be educational and fun and really encourage kids to enjoy the wetlands," Colyer said. "They're really thinking about the future."

Starting at the trailhead, the path through the park will branch off in two directions when phase one of the project is done, Frye said.

Both an eastern and a western path are planned to go as far as two "duck blinds," where park users will be able to observe the wildlife in a natural state, Frye said.

"They're little observation stands that are kind of shielded so that you can stand out there and see the animals and they don't feel like they're threatened, because there are these little slatted walls that you can stand behind and look through and not be seen by the waterfowl," he said.

Future phases will connect the ends of the two paths to complete the loop trail across the lake and through the park and build an observation tower with a view of the entire acreage, he said.

The wetlands had a long history as a hunting ground before the city acquired them as parkland, Frye said.

Now, hunting is and will be strictly prohibited.

"You can hunt with your camera, that's about it," he said. "With that being used as a hunting preserve all those years, the birds are conditioned to come down there. Now they're just not at risk."

The ceremony celebrating the park construction and the passage of the Plates for Parks bill is scheduled for 2 p.m. April 21, at the trailhead site just inside the 29th Street entrance to the park.

This story was originally published April 10, 2018 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Cadillac Lake to be site of celebration for new wetland park, Wichita flag car plates."