New park with destination playground, pickleball, fishing pond coming to this KS city
This time next year Goddard will have its third city park.
The west Wichita suburb now has two city parks, both south of Kellogg. But the city recently announced a new park will go on the southwest corner of Maple Street and 183rd St.
“This Legacy Bank Park is going to be on the north side of Kellogg, where we have had a lot of new residential development (go up) over the last few years,” Craig Crossette, Goddard’s city manager, told The Eagle. “And it’s going to obviously be new and so that kind of stands out above the rest.”
Named after Legacy Bank, which donated $500,000 to the project, the new park will open in spring 2027 with a fishing pond, a playground, pickle ball courts, a dog park and more. The park will eventually expand to include a boathouse and amphitheater, though that phase is not planned yet.
The new park has been in the works since 2014, Crossette said. The land was purchased from Tanganyika Wildlife Park in 2019. Since then, the city has held several surveys and community events to gauge what the community wanted out of a new park.
“This (final design) is an accumulation of all of that information gathering,” Crossette said. “So it’s truly a community driven project.
“The quality of life in Goddard is very high. . . . This new legacy Bank Park is just going to kind of give us another gear as far as quality of life is concerned, so we’re really excited about it.”
The park will include a “destination playground,” an indoor/outdoor pavilion, a private meeting space that can be rented out for parties and events and a food truck area.
When the park opens in spring 2027, the city is planning an event to celebrate including music, entertainment, food and a pickleball and fishing competitions, the city’s press release says.
The park is estimated to cost nearly $12 million for the full project, though this first phase will likely cost around half of that, Crossette said. Along with Legacy Bank’s gift, the city also received a $200,000 grant from Play & Park Structures’ healthy kids initiative and $1 million from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. The rest of the money needed for this part of the project is coming out of Goddard’s general fund, Crossette said.
Legacy Bank’s $500,000 gift is just one of the ways the business is making its name known in Goddard.
The bank recently announced plans to open its 11th branch in the suburb next year, in the city’s Paradise Corner development located off of Kellogg and Main Street.
“It has always been our mission to give back to the communities that have supported us,” Steven Suellentrop, president and CEO of Legacy Bank, said in the Goddard press release. “We are blessed with strong customer relationships and with a dedicated team of employees, who make it possible for us to invest in meaningful projects like this and create a lasting impact in the communities we serve.”
The city will break ground on the Legacy Bank Park at 11:30 a.m. May 28.
