SLM talked with Ryan Graham, director of the St. Charles County parks, about the two greenspaces the agency’s hard at work to create…so the rest of us can play.
Purpose of the name: to honor servicemen and women from St. Charles County who were killed in action. The park will include a memorial garden with flags.
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Location: Tucked into “that golden triangle of development,” off Highway 94 and the Page extension at Kisker and Pitman Hill roads, near Mid Rivers Mall Drive in Weldon Spring. There’s not a lot of tracts this size within the developed areas of St. Charles County.
Size: 120 acres
How it will be different: “Typically our mission is to preserve green space and natural resources; we focus mainly on conservation and passive recreation—disc golf, picnic shelters. But because this is in a more heavily populated area, it was designed to appeal to kids. There will be ball fields, a 3-acre dog park, two large fishing lakes, a splash pad, and a big, all-inclusive playground. A boardwalk goes through the woods and overlooks the water.
Biggest challenge: “Creating those lakes. You have to line them with just the right type of clay and just the right amount of clay. The north lake is 2.4 acres; the south lake is 1.8 acres.”
Past life: “It was essentially a farm; there weren’t a lot of wooded areas. But we do have a 1.6-mile paved trail that loops around the park and smaller connecting trails throughout the rest of the park.”
Grand opening: October 2018
Riverside Landing
Location: between Kampville Drive and Huster Road along the Mississippi River
Size: 7.73 acres, on a 40,000-acre, 38-mile-long segment of the Mississippi River known as Alton Lake
Past life: as Riverside Harbor, along the Mississippi River on the Dardenne Slough across from Dardenne Island.
Transformation: “This year we’ll be taking the site back to flat ground, removing fencing, an old house, a former snacks shack, and gas tanks. Once we can open the boat ramp, we will come back through and turn the property into a county park.”
Future uses: camping, kayaking, canoeing, boating, hunting, fishing
Future amenities: campsites, a pavilion, a water play area, a new boat ramp, new docks, a kayak launch area, and restrooms
How it will be different: “This is not your typical park at all. We’d like to connect it to other parks in the area, like Lakeside 370 in St. Peters, through a blueway along the Dardenne Creek. And we are looking at routes we could connect into existing trail systems, connecting to Lakeside 370, Boschert Greenway, and Fountain Lakes.”
Grand opening: not till 2019
