Linn County Supervisors announce $7 million purchase of 485 acres

CEDAR RAPIDS - Linn County Supervisors have announced the $7.2 million purchase of 485 acres of land, which they say is to be largely used for parks, trails and conservation efforts.

Supervisor Brent Oleson, during an informal meeting Monday, announced the purchase - 306 acres north of the Gardner Golf Course and another 179 acres to the south of the golf course - from the Sutherland Dows Family Trust.

Oleson described the purchase as a big addition to the county's stock of conservation land.

'I'm just really excited that we'll be able to acquire this land, protect most of it and then those acres that don't meet our strategic vision in regard to park additions and trails and water protection, we will turn back over to the private sector for future development,” Oleson said.

The land purchase is to add several-hundred acres to the nearly 700-acre Squaw Creek Park, create water protection areas along the Squaw Creek corridor and allow for the connection of the Sac & Fox and Grant Wood trail systems.

'It's huge,” Dennis Goemaat, deputy director of Linn County Conservation, said of the announcement. 'If you look at parks like Squaw Creek Park, it's not hard to envision that it's surrounded someday by development and so if you look out 20 years, people will be so grateful that this land was protected when it could be protected.”

While the announcement of the land purchase comes on the heels of the recent voter approval of a $40 million land and water quality bond, negotiations for the acquisition have been underway since July. The board closed on the land purchase Nov. 8.

The negotiations took place in closed sessions, which is allowed by Iowa Code.

That means the purchase is to be financed not through conservation bond dollars, but with local-option sales tax funds, general obligation bonds based on the establishment of an urban renewal area, budget reserves and future sale of some of the parcels.

More details on the finances, as well as future conservation projects on the newly acquired land, are to take place during future meetings of the Linn County Board of Supervisors and Linn County Conservation Board.

Oleson said the purchase includes $50,000 in credit back with the completion of a project recognizing the Dows family.

Oleson said some of the land not used for conservation and trails is likely to be sold.

In collaboration with the effort, the city of Marion has agreed to establish wetland area with an underground water-treatment complex on about 5 to 10 acres of the land - which runs along the city's main sanitary wastewater system.

In addition, Oleson hinted a desire to acquire the land in between the two parcels just purchased - where the Cedar Rapids-owned golf course sits.

'If they want to shed a golf course, I would love to be able to propose some way of adding that,” he said. 'I think that golf course, strategically for them doesn't make sense. That will be something they decide, but I want them to know the inquiry by the county is serious.”

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