City's water park all washed up

THE SAGINAW NEWS

Tonight marks the funeral and wake for Saginaw's Andersen Water Park.

In two gatherings, city leaders will close the book on the summer attraction and begin planning a new style of recreation at Fordney and Rust.

Officials say the 20-year-old park mothballed for the past four summers may have a future as a skate park, splash park or other overhauled magnet for public recreation. But a decision is far from final.

The first step is to rewrite the formal Parks and Recreation Plan to "repurpose" the park, said Zoning Coordinator John Stemple.

Planning Commission members likely will approve the re-write at today's 6 p.m. meeting at City Hall, 1315 S. Washington, said City Councilman Larry Coulouris, a commission member.

Council members also must sign off, possibly as early as the meeting at noon Monday, Stemple said.

At 5 p.m. today, city and community leaders are opening the floor for public input at the inaugural meeting of the Andersen Water Park Alternative Use Task Force. With a goal of coming up with ideas for new uses for the park, the 5 p.m. workshop takes place at the Andersen Enrichment Center, on Ezra Rust near Fordney.

Any reopening remains at least a year off, but City Manager Darnell Earley said the city already has started applying for grants -- for what, exactly, remains unclear -- through the state Department of Natural Resources.

"The mere fact that we are pursuing it keeps us on track with the DNR," Earley said.

State officials are pressuring City Hall to reopen the half-million-gallon wave pool -- or, at a minimum, the real estate on which it sits -- that closed as part of budget cuts since its last summer of operation in 2002.

That year, it ran a $175,000 deficit, and city officials have said it would cost at least $300,000 to reopen mothballed facilities.

Last summer, Saginaw Township businessman Jimmy Greene, representing a group of private investors, approached city leaders with hopes of overhauling and controlling the park as a for-profit venture.

They ran into a buzzsaw: The federal government.

Under the terms of a $640,000 federal grant the city used to build the park, the city must retain control, officials have said.

Without management control, Greene said his effort would become "corporate and economic suicide."

Despite the failure, the public stir Greene created played no small role in the City Council's reshuffling of "strategic plan" priorities this year, hiking the water park up from No. 17 a year ago into the top five for 2007.

But the fix isn't quick.

"I doubt that we'll have a determination made by the end of the year," Earley said, "but we'll be in a better position in the next fiscal year to budget for some kind of alternative use." v

Joe Snapper is a staff writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9715.