The City's Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services Department is starting to plan for a new park in eastern Colorado Springs, near the intersection of Tutt Boulevard and Barnes Road.
Envisioned to functional similarly to Memorial or John Venezia parks, Coleman Park will become a multi-faceted outdoor recreational destination and sports-oriented hub with a universally accessible playground. The future community park will integrate Sand Creek as a significant element of the park by focusing on trail connectivity, a potential offsite southern detention pond, and an overlook.
Going from undeveloped land to a park
Right now Coleman Park is mostly undeveloped.
The process to create a park on the 70-acre site starts with creating a Master Plan. It's our "wish list" of what the city and community want the future park to be. It provides recommendations for the design, development and construction.
The City will engage the community to help identify and prioritize how to improve, program and manage this land to best meet the needs of Colorado Springs residents both now and in the future.
“Master plans are an exciting and important first step in developing a park,” said Karen Palus, Parks, Recreation & Cultural Services director. “This signals to our community that a new park is on the way. Our city, and this part of the city in particular, has grown by leaps and bounds and is in need of additional sports fields and a new place for outdoor recreation. We look forward to working closely with community members and stakeholders through this master plan process to design and eventually build a place where we’re all excited and proud to come together to play.”
The process of creating the Master Plan is starting now and is expected to finish up in spring of 2023. When the master plan is finished we expect to develop the final design and construction drawings from 2023-2025. When those are completed, construction will start when funds are available.
Background
Coleman Park is next to Sand Creek, as well as UCHealth Park, home of the Rocky Mountain Vibes baseball team, and Ragain Field, formerly the Switchbacks soccer stadium.
The City acquired the park site in 1995 through the land development process when Pring Ranch was developed. Then, in 2021, the City traded a 23.5-acre sports complex property it owned on Tutt Boulevard for 23.5 acres next to the park site in a land exchange with Classic Communities. The additional acreage was part of the former Springs Ranch Golf Course.
The park is named after Norman “Bulldog” Coleman, a retired U.S. Navy admiral and passionate advocate for local business and philanthropy. Prior to his death in 1994, Coleman chaired the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, Military Affairs Council and the United Fund, a precursor to the United Way of the Pikes Peak Region.
Funding
The master planning project is funded thanks to voter approval of ballot issue 2B in the November 2019 election, which allowed the City to retain $7 million in excess 2018 TABOR revenue for predetermined park and trail projects citywide. The total cost of the master plan is $247,000, and the process will be conducted by Colorado-based Wenk Associates and overseen by the PRCS department. The plan is expected to be finalized in the spring of 2023 with construction to follow as funding becomes available.
For more information, visit the project webpage.