by BRAD ROLLINS

Kyle officials have agreed to send back a little more than half of $2.5 million the city was awarded two years ago from Hays County voter-approved bond funds to develop a regional park around a recreation center no longer on the city’s drawing board.

The city’s previous administration envisioned a $20 million recreation center as the centerpiece of its 43-acre Vista Park at Dacy Lane and Beebe Road east of IH-35. The county grant was earmarked to pay for amenities like picnic areas, trails, a skate park, pavilion, playgrounds, restrooms, an amphitheater and ball fields.

Then the city council decided last fall to delay calling a bond election to fund the project until at least May 2011. Since then, the recreation center and surrounding park has slipped from even the draft three-year capital improvement program; the county money must be spent and the park completed by 2012 under the grant’s original terms.

Instead, the city will use about $1.2 million of the money for improvements to Gregg-Clarke and City Square parks and for developing the Plum Creek Preserve & Nature Trail.

“We felt like it was a good deal because we will be benefitting from funds that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to use. This $1.2 million goes a long way in Kyle and we will be able to use [the grant] on parks projects this year,” Mayor Lucy Johnson said.

County officials meanwhile are expected to consider applying part of the remainder to preserve about 50 acres threatened by development near Jacob’s Well in Wimberley.

The city council approved an interlocal agreement codifying the arrangement at its regular meeting last week. The money includes:
• $475,000 to build three new softball fields and related parking, driveways, lighting and bathrooms at Gregg-Clarke Park. The project also includes a foot bridge over the creek, trails, and water and wastewater system expansion. The project’s total price tag is estimated at $771,454.
• $475,000 for the Plum Creek Preserve & Nature Trail’s Lake Kyle Park, a project that includes bathrooms, a pavilion, amphitheater, trails, a fishing pier, picnic areas and primitive camp sites. Total cost is estimated at $936,450.
• $250,000 for a bathroom, water/wastewater and electric connections, an irrigation system, landscaping, trails and sidewalks at City Square Park.

County officials have yet to vote on how to spend the $1.3 million Kyle is returning pending the outcome of Pct. 3 Commissioner Will Conley’s negotiations to buy conservation easements with The Nature Conservancy on 50 acres currently owned by developers.

The tract adjoins about 50 acres which the county has already committed $3 million to buy, including the well itself, a landmark artesian formation at the headwaters of Cypress Creek.