Wichita has nine undeveloped parks – and some may stay that way

A 4.6-acre lot, speckled with trees and overgrown grass, sits sandwiched between Palisade Street and a stretch of Union Pacific railway. There are no sidewalks, signs or playgrounds. A passerby might deem it a mere strip of land separating train tracks from the neighborhood – but it’s actually a city park.

Palisade Park is one of the nine undeveloped park sites listed in the city’s Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces plan. The sites total more than 950 acres of land.

They were given to or purchased by the Department of Park and Recreation over the past 50 years with the intention of either preserving nature or creating new parks, principal park planner Larry Hoetmer said.

Of the nine sites, three are budgeted for development in the next eight years.

Through 2025, $1.3 million is designated for the development of Central and Bristol Park at 11608 E. Central; $9.5 million is designated for Crystal Prairie Lake Park, north of K-96 between North Hoover Road and the Arkansas River; and $750,000 is designated for the beginning phases of Pracht Wetlands Park, near West 29th Street North and Maize Road.

Central and Bristol will have a police substation, playground and other amenities.

Crystal Prairie Lake will have a 215-acre lake with recreational water sports, a cable wake park, wetlands, a swim beach and boardwalks. The park will be one of the largest in Wichita, covering more than 420 acres once complete. It will have a swim beach that accommodates 900, 10 acres of festival lawn, an amphitheater, multiple shelters and events buildings and more.

Pracht Wetlands, a 91-acre plot that includes the Cadillac Lake wetland, will have natural wetland viewing areas, a boardwalk system, trails and more. Construction for the park could begin as early as this fall, Hoetmer said. Pracht Wetlands could be one of the largest urban wetland parks in the country once completed, with a major hotel and restaurant development going in west of the park.

The remaining six sites have no immediate plans for development, Hoetmer said.

These parks are:

▪ Brooks Tract Park at 4100 N. West St., 272 acres. The city purchased the land in 1966 and 1968 for a landfill. Although the main landfill has closed, the city still uses it for construction debris.

▪ Mead Island Park at 1300 N. Bitting. Four acres were conveyed to the Board of Park Commissioners in 1978 by the city of Wichita.

▪ North Ridge Village Park near K-96 and North Ridge Road; 17 acres were donated in 2005.

▪ Russell Donation Park between K-15 and South Clifton; 102 acres were donated in 2007.

▪ Schraft Park at 2239 W. 35th St. South; 5 acres were donated in 1998.

▪ Palisade Park at 5433 Palisade, 4.6 acres that were purchased for $31,000 in 1992.

Palisade Park is the only undeveloped site that is now listed as being open to the public. Hoetmer said the city has no plans to add walking paths or any kind of amenities at this time.

“There’s certainly a value in just providing open spaces to neighborhoods across the city for people to utilize,” he said. “Sometimes people want amenities. Sometimes there’s a need for an amenity. And sometimes people like the idea of (an) area remaining undeveloped.”

Some locations, Hoetmer said, are intentionally undeveloped to protect natural habitats and wildlife.

Mead Island, which is situated in the Little Arkansas River between the Bitting Avenue Bridge and West 13th Street, fits in that category.

“It’s kind of got its own private little ecosystem on the river,” he said. “There’s no plans for developing that. We prefer it stay natural.”

Janet Miller, City Council member for District 6, where the island is located, said her constituents agree.

“There would be a public outcry if we even thought about developing something on Mead Island,” she said.

Other locations, like the Russell Donation or Schraft, have open space for potential development. However, Hoetmer said new park development requires two things: interest and money.

“There has to be a strong constituency by the community to develop new parks, and there has to be funding in place,” he said. “A lot of park development that happens, often times, stems back to community interest for those areas. But the big factor, quite frankly, is funding.”

Hoetmer said often the department will be given land but won’t have money to develop it. Of the nine undeveloped parks, five were donated. The other four — Brooks Tract, Central and Bristol, Crystal Prairie Lake and Palisade — were purchased.

The Capital Improvement Program, a 10-year plan released in 2016 that outlines potential projects and budgets for the city, allocated $49.1 million for 16 park projects. Eleven of those involve improvements to existing parks.

“Right now, we’re really focused on upgrading and maintaining and improving a lot of our existing parks, because we have a lot of inventory that requires us to improve those facilities as they age and become less desirable,” Hoetmer said.

The city owns 144 parks and public spaces, which include community and neighborhood parks, sports complexes, urban plazas and natural areas.

Miller, whose district includes three undeveloped park sites, said she thinks updating current park facilities is the public’s main concern.

“I don’t hear people asking for more developed parkland. I think I hear them asking for improvement of existing parkland more often,” she said.

As the city grows, Hoetmer said, these undeveloped sites may become more valuable and garner more interest. For now, he said, they’ll remain set aside for potential future use.

This story was originally published July 9, 2017 at 11:03 PM with the headline "Wichita has nine undeveloped parks – and some may stay that way."