Around $5 million dollars of tax revenue and just over $1.5 million dollars of fundraising money are being put towards a new park at 6300 Pioneer Parkway. In May 2014 work began on Terra Park, a 200 acre recreation area. The project has been broken down into three phases to allow for not all of the funds needed to be available at one time. “The first phase was building the lake which went as it was intended to,” Parks Director John Schmitz said. “The next phases hit a bit of a speed bump that was related to bidders not being able to bid at the time of the project.”

The project was then delayed for bids to be restructured. “After [restructuring] occurred we got much better results from the bids,” Schmitz said.

Since then, the final two phases have gone according to schedule for the 2017 final completion date. The amenities seen in the park are based off the input of several groups and what they thought would best fit not only in the area but in the community as a whole.

Around 150-160 acres of the park will be intended to be more natural. That includes mowed soft trails as well as hard trails for running, walking, biking and even cross country skiing in the winter. One of the main features of the park is a nine acre lake for fishing stocked with approximately 2,000-4,000 bluegills, 1,000 largemouth bass and 500-1,000 channel catfish. A fishing pier is due to be added in 2017. The lake is not open to fishing until June that year to allow fish to grow.

The lake may later be open to use for ice fishing and ice skating. “Within a park like this you want to put things together so that they are multifunctional and so that you’re not only using them for one particular thing,” said Schmitz. “We want to make sure people are using things as much as they can for as long as they can.” The total project cost is estimated to be approximately $5.5 million.