So, we are here to talk about the 76-acre Park uh sports complex RFP. Um, a little bit of background uh on this item. The city purchased 76 acres south of Sunfish Lake Park uh for a city park. Parks master plan notes that the city does not have uh enough competitive recreation fields for the growing population.

Additionally, the Commission also recommended that City Council should evaluate how the sports complex might impact Lake Elmo Park Reserve and Sunfish Lake to the north to determine if it's an appropriate location for such a facility. Considerations may include evaluating lighting, parking, scale of development, and other environmental impacts.

Staff are recommending that the parks commission move forward with the HKGI proposal as a recommendation for city council after their team scored higher than the remaining teams in the overall evaluation process.

I'll make a motion to recommend HKGI to the City Council as selected for the Parks Central Park Sports Matt Complex Master Plan with the inclusion of those items that we had recommended in the our July meeting.

The issue before the commission tonight is would the Parks Commission like to recommend to the City Council to accept the donation for the um the new fencing at Ridge Park. This would include a backstop, some first and third base baseline fencing, and including the dugout.

So, that's a huge I think for me that's an issue. Like it's would be our responsibility I think to provide some type of accessible road to that field if we go ahead with improvements. We should have that.

All I'm going to say as a former baseball coach, they they would have to absolutely redo the outfield to smooth it because it's really rough and kids get deterred pretty quick when the ball goes this way when they're coming to get it. So, for the kids' safety and everything, you got to consider the extra amount it would take to level that outfield.

I move to table this Like Elmo Baseball number one donation um for the fence at Ridge Park um until next meeting.

This this donation comes with a request that the city aid to the cost of their project uh 50%. Due to the timing of this request, uh this these funds aren't available in the city's maintenance budget to um just provide that.

Their proposal does include just in updating the irrigation in that central area in the green field inside inside the um inside the base area and not the exterior of everything else. So in my proposal and analysis I did indicate that that might be something that we look at in the future.

Has there been any This is a little more long-term kind of with we're talking with the Baseball Association with VFW and this kind of gets to the sports complex a little bit. Any just planning discussions with these groups saying, 'Okay, in the next 5 years, 10 years, you know, what are you anticipating, you know, for fields and improvements so that we're not always just reacting to it and we can maybe plan it and have it in the CIP versus having to add in the CIP and maybe taking something out that we had planned.'

Um sure. I move that we table the recommendation to approve the CIP project in 2027 for improvements to VFW ballfield not to exceed 50,000 until next month.

I really think the whole concept of what's being talked about at Ridge Park is very premature for the population and the traffic that uses that park today. And and our neighboring subdivisions all kind of concur that that we're a little bit con- confused by the desire to make an investment when there's not an infrastructure to support what's being talked about as a development.

My understanding is or I guess yeah, Adam is that could be a good clarification. Feel like I'm seeing in these proposals that the um idea would to be to put it adjacent to where a proposed moved parking lot is. Is that correct or is that still flexible and is that something that we need discussion on?

The larger picture here that I This [clears throat] is a 23-acre park? Is that about right? 22 acres? Doesn't matter. It's a fairly large park by our standards, average-wise. We have as mentioned that potential development on the south. We have potential development that would come to the west. Um we don't know when. Maybe our planner has some tidbits for us. But I think the the point is that we have a park there. It is very unlikely that we would establish within those new developments another park.

I move to recommend to city council the request to purchase and install option number two play set with the change of having one or two fewer swings in place of a bench. With shade. Without it costing without incurring any additional cost.