Water Works Park Foundation raises more than half of fund goal
The Des Moines Water Works Park Foundation has raised $4.95 million of its $9 million goal for the first phase of its planned overhaul of Des Moines Water Works Park. The foundation now will shift its focus from a quiet phase of fundraising to corporate asks.
“This is momentum,” said spokesman Ryan Hanser. Executive Director Sam Carrell added, “It’s going very well.”
Board Chairman Randy Reichardt said the creation of the foundation in 2014 helped launch a successful campaign that follows decades of on-again, off-again plans by Des Moines Water Works to improve the park. The utility is helping the cause by installing wetlands for water treatment that eventually will feed a kayak run in the park, part of phase two of the project.
“This has taken a long, long time, but the foundation just started,” Reichardt said.
The foundation has sold many of the naming rights offered, and now is coming up with more. Already sold are the $2 million rights to the passageway between Gray’s Lake and Water Works Park and the $1.5 million naming of the amphitheater, for example. Those announcements will come later.
Phase one will include improvements to the arboretum and great lawn on the east side of the park, the installation of a tunnel under Fleur Drive connecting the park to Gray’s Lake, the addition of a two-sided stage, restrooms, an entry portal and some natural playground areas. That work is expected to be done in the next couple of years or so. The tunnel has been shortened for security reasons and will be a well-lit path with a design that appears to be a nod to the old Work Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps designs.
Bishop Engineering has been hired to do a topographic study this year that will clear the way for RDG Planning & Design to do the final designs for the park work, Carrell said. A bid for construction should be awarded for 2017.
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