Urbandale's Walnut Creek Regional Park is expanding

Thu September 27 2007
Posted Sep 27, 2007
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Walnut Creek Regional area expands, and eventually will add recreational areas and have links to trails. By ELIZABETH OWENS REGISTER STAFF WRITER Urbandale's growth westward hasn't come at the price of development on every square foot of land. In the midst of neighborhoods largely comprised of new houses and young families is an almost 200-acre park that offers the shade of trees, the sounds of water running through a creek and a seemingly isolated open space. It even comes with coyotes, according to Lori Noah, an Urbandale Parks and Recreation commissioner whose house backs up to the park. Urbandale has been acquiring the land since 1999 for Walnut Creek Regional Park, which is generally bounded by 156th Street, 142nd Street, Douglas Parkway and Meredith Drive. The park, which was first decided on by the city in 1995, is now about 187 acres, and is expected to be 227 acres after a couple of additional parcels are acquired. "Most of the park is natural space," said Paul Dekker, Urbandale community development director. Dekker and Parks and Recreation Director Jan Herke took five of the Parks and Recreation commissioners on a tour of part of the park Wednesday evening. The park eventually will be linked with a web of trails and pedestrian bridges, and dotted with playgrounds and shelters, as well as other amenities. The City Council in November 2006 approved a master plan that shows an aquatics center, performing arts center, regional playground and nature center in the park near the corner of 152nd Street and Meredith Drive, although whether these items are built depends on community interest and money, Herke said. The majority of the park is floodplain and can't be developed, Dekker said, but the chunk of land at 152nd and Meredith was purchased because it is developable and as such will likely be used for at least a couple of larger amenities. Development of the park is being done in small increments each year, or as money is available, Herke said. The full development of the park could take up to 40 years. The features currently within the park are a playground and basketball court at 153rd Street and Horton Avenue, which also serves the Horizon's Ridge neighborhood. The construction of a trail from 156th Street to that playground is being worked on now, and in 2009, that trail is expected to be continued from 153rd Street to Prairie Avenue. Aurora Avenue will be extended to run through the park in 2011, according to the city's approved Capital Improvements Program. The city is currently mowing paths in the park where trails will eventually be, Dekker said. "There are people back here all the time," Noah said. The park is intended, Dekker said, to be a similar facility to Walker Johnston Park on the east side of the city. Reporter Elizabeth Owens can be reached at (515) 284-8142 or elowens@dmreg.com [See source for map]