20-year plan set for Cedar Rapids greenways

CEDAR RAPIDS — Three riverfront greenways on the city's west side will take 20 years or more to realize and could cost $93 million if every dream for them comes to pass.

The greenways concept and cost projections were endorsed this week by the City Council, completing a nine-month planning and public-input process led by urban design firm Confluence.

'I hope I live long enough to see this and enjoy it,' City Council member Ann Poe, 62, said at Tuesday evening's council meeting.

The three greenways are a 72.2-acre area called Time Check Park; a 22-acre area called Riverfront Park that stretches along the river from Time Check Park through Kingston Village; and a 39.7-acre area called Czech Village Park below the Czech Village commercial district.

Poe encouraged Sven Leff, the city's Parks and Recreation director and the Confluence designers, to incorporate an art element into the Time Check Park greenway that memorializes all of the neighborhood homes lost to the 2008 flood.

The Confluence plan envisions pavilions in the Time Check and Czech Village parks. Council member Monica Vernon said she would like to see the city seek design proposals so the pavilions reflect the neighborhoods around the parks and are not something the city 'just slaps up.'

The greenways' concept calls for a riverfront trail to connect the three greenway parks, and Vernon said she wanted to see the trail go under the city's bridges so trail users don't have to wait for traffic.

She said she could imagine a half-marathon road race on the city's both-sides-of-the-river trail system.

Council member Justin Shields told his council colleagues not to forget that many houses were lost in the Czech Village area during the flood of 2008 even if more were lost in Time Check.

Brenda Nelson, a Confluence landscape architect and planner, told the City Council that the greenways' plan remained a concept with flexibility, because the city first must decide on where its flood-protection system will go and what it will look like.

The greenways concept features a long list of amenities and attractions.

The Time Check Park and Czech Village Park have great lawns incorporated into them. The Time Check Park will have a bike park or pump track (with dirt berms and mounds), basketball courts, athletic fields and a concession stand. The Czech Village Park has an ice rink and ice trail, playgrounds, an adventure park with high-ropes course and children's-ropes course and a return of the village's Roundhouse. The Riverfront Park has a boardwalk, a skate park north of Interstate 380 and a kayak millrace.

Confluence's plan calls for the greenways to emerge in phases.

From 2015 through 2019, existing infrastructure will be removed as the city's flood-protection system begins to be built. Open spaces will be available and the skate park along the river north of Interstate 380 will be built.

From 2020 through 2024, athletic fields, shelters, the Roundhouse, great lawns, trails and gardens will be built.

A third phase, from 2025 through 2029, will bring more complicated projects such as the ice rink and ice trail, bike park and adventure park.

The proposal for Time Check Park will cost an estimated $563,000 per acre; for Riverfront Park, $750,000 an acre; and for Czech Village Park, $907,000 an acre, according to Confluence's projections.

Gail Loskill, communications coordinator for the Parks and Recreation Department, said Confluence began its work on the greenways project in February. The city is paying the firm $140,600, she said.