By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
At the Great Bend City Council meeting on July 15, the city administration plans to present options to add two mini soccer pitches and a restroom facility at Heizer Park.
The fenced in soccer pitches will be approximately 88' x 80', and the restroom will be a prefabricated facility. Councilmember Alan Moeder expressed concerns to Assistant City Administrator Logan Burns about constructing another bathroom at the park after a previous structure was torn down years ago because of misbehavior.
"Maybe we move those restrooms up closer to the street instead of tucking them back so far," said Burns. "That might be an option. I think better lighting in the area, maybe some security cameras, can help curb that."
In 2022, the City of Great Bend was notified they were approved for a $161,000 grant from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks to be used for Heizer Park improvements. Burns said the grant requires a city match of $200,000. The city did an end-of-year transfer of $100,000 and there is leftover money from the approved bathroom project at Langrehr Field.
"The thoughts on that were to take the remaining money from the CXT bathrooms at Langrehr," said Burns. "We could apply that to the ending balance of this. We'd still have to find a little bit of money to finish that out. That would allow us to do a $361,000 project at Heizer Park."
The mini soccer pitches were initially suggested in the master plan for improvements at Brit Spaugh Park but was tabled because the lone bid came in over budget.
Burns expects quotes for the Heizer Park project to be received in the next couple of weeks and will present information to the council on July 15.
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