CIRCLEVILLE – City Council officially consummated the deal to expand Barthelmas Park another 22 Acres of land that sits adjacent to the park.
In yesterdays park board meeting Mayor Don Mcllroy said that suggestions for future plans for the park that have came from citizens would be to have a all in one sports park so families that had several children in different sports at the same time would not have to move around town to attend.
Councilman Barry Keller reported that the City has already settled the details on the property and had a verbal agreement with Rhodes Farm market to buy the 22 acres of land that sits adjacent to the original park. During a earlier council meeting Council said, “this was a opportunity they couldn’t pass up, trying to secure more park space that sits adjacent to the park property already.”
The cost of the land is 300,000 dollars the city will fund all the upfront cost by a bond, and pay the funds back by using all the Pickaway Park and Trail Grants for the next 5 years (45,000 per year) according to Tom Davis of Pickaway County Parks. “Our contribution for this park will be 225,000.00 dollars of the costs.
“The money Circleville will spend to purchase the park is about 16,000 dollars a year for this property over 5 years for a total of 75,000 dollars. Circleville is not sure where they will pull that money, one suggestion was from the Capital Improvement Fund.
The city said that the goal of acquiring this property would be to expand softball/baseball fields to one park, plus other sports.
“Additional monies will be needed to develop the land, that could come in the form of grants once Circleville owns the property,” according to Tom Davis.
Circleville has 100,000 a year earmarked for parks and roads, Council has planned most of those monies to go towards Ted Lewis renovations, but because the park board funds will go towards the purchase of this land no other monies will go towards Ted Lewis for at least Five years.
Currently Barthelmas park has,
2 concession areas
2 permanent bathrooms
2 shelter houses
5 baseball diamonds
Playground
Several soccer fields
