Prairie Park Fishery should open to public next month

Two mayors, five years and one flood ago, City Hall first made plans to turn an old waterfilled industrial sandpit along the Cedar River into a fishing and recreational venue.

Next month, if all goes as planned, work on the newly named Prairie Park Fishery will be all but complete and the park will be open to the public.

Steve Krug, a landscape architect for the city's Parks and Recreation Department, said the public will enjoy the fishing, boating and picnicking opportunities, as well as the nearly two-mile trail for bicycling, running and walking around a 60-acre lake.

Krug said the city also plans to extend the lake trail a short distance so it connects to the Sac and Fox Trail.

The park is off Otis Road SE, tucked in between the Cedar River and the Cedar Valley/Rompot Neighborhood.

The park gives boaters access to a cove that leads directly into the Cedar River as well as access to the lake. Motorized boats, except those with electric trolling motors, will be prohibited on the lake.

The former sandpit has been stocked by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources with game fish, though the lake has all the fish that are in the Cedar River, as well, since the river periodically floods into the lake.

Most of the banks of the Prairie Park Fishery are covered in plant life. The slope of some of the banks has been softened to make the park safer and give it the feel of a lake. The high water level last week helped obscure the spot's past life as a sandpit.

Directly across the Cedar River is Alliant Energy's Prairie Creek power plant. The Union Pacific Railroad's main east-west line runs alongside the park, seemingly in touching distance at some spots. And looming off to the northwest, across the river, is the Mount Trash­more landfill. Krug said visitors who time their visits right can also hear the Cedar Rapids Police Department outdoor shooting range just down river.

The City Council last week formally named the park Prairie Park Fishery without comment.

Krug said that there had been a couple of different 'quests' to find the right name for the place before the current one finally emerged.

The sandpit's donor, Martin Marietta Materials, did not want to be in the name, and some on the City Council didn't want the word 'Cedar' in the name.

They felt enough in the city has a name beginning with Cedar, Krug said.

Krug said the flood of 2008 hit just as construction had begun to transform the park into a fishery. The flood loused up some of the initial grading work, left debris 15 to 20 feet up in the trees and sent the project off the priority list. None of the damage was covered by Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster funds, he added.

The construction price is now at $1.52 million, city figures show.