Facility to include water park, pond
A new 150-acre recreational facility in Columbia County is one step closer to reality, but before construction can begin, Barry Smith said, county officials want the public's input.
Barry Smith (with shovel), Columbia County Community and Leisure's director, helps Four Seasons Landscaping Inc. employee Celenino Ramirez (left) plant the first of 40 magnolia trees and 30 maples along the entrance corridor to Blanchard Woods Park while county Clean and Beautiful Beautification subcommittee member Ernie Blackburn and Four Seasons employee Andy Hasson look on. George Fuller, the owner of the landscape company that donated the county's Christmas tree, gave 126 trees to the subcommittee. The remaining maples will be planted at schools that expressed interest.
Photo by Valerie Rowell
At 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday , county officials will hold a public meeting at the Evans Government Complex's Building A for residents to review the master plan for Blanchard Woods Park.
"(This meeting) is primarily for public information," Smith, the division director for the county's Community and Leisure Services Department, said. "The public is urged and encouraged to attend because we will listen to you and gain input and heed the citizens' recommendations and hopefully come up with a very workable, functional plan that will serve Columbia County for years to come."
A second meeting will be held later in November, which is when Smith hopes the master plan will be completed.
In the next eight to 10 months, he said, construction will begin.
The park, which had its preliminary master plan submitted by the Augusta firm Johnson Laschober and Associates in August, is an $8 million project. It is mostly funded by the county's special purpose local option sales tax. The site, which will be located 400 yards off Blanchard Road in Evans, will incorporate different amenities such as eight to 10 soccer fields, a BMX bicycle track, cross-country walking trail, water park for children and more.
"There's really not a (park like this) in this area," Smith said, adding that the park will have one particularly unique feature.
"It has a pond on it, and we also have a festival area planned where we could have festivals and music."