Linn County buying three acres from Cedar Rapids school district for new park building

Linn County is buying three acres of ground from the Cedar Rapids school district for the county's new maintenance facility at Morgan Creek Park on the far west side of Cedar Rapids.

The three acres is part of a larger parcel that the school district has purchased as a site for a possible new school.

In January, Linn County purchased 71.36 acres of privately held farm land to add to the 230-acre Morgan Creek Park.

The park sits along the alignment of the Highway 100 extension, and the Linn County supervisors said the purchase would allow them to protect the park from expected commercial development nearby.

The county paid $1.735 million, or $24,313 an acre, for the 71.36 acres. It is paying the school district $52,500, or $17,500 an acre, for the three acres for the park maintenance facility.

The new 10,000-square-foot facility will replace one a third the size built 47 years ago, Darrin Gage, the county's director of policy and administration, said on Monday.

He said the new facility will cost an estimated $875,000, which includes a new sewer line, demolition of the existing building and $71,000 in contingency funding.

The county also has agreed to sell about two acres of the land acquired to add to the park in January to the Iowa Department of Transportation, to provide room for the DOT to take E Avenue over Highway 100.