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Local park efforts awarded $150,000

By WALT WILLIAMS, Chronicle Staff Writer

Two local parks-in-the-making have received nearly $150,000 in federal money to bring them closer to reality.


 Volunteers working on the Gallatin County Regional Park and Bozeman's Rose Park recently learned the projects had been awarded Land and Water Conservation Fund grants. Both parks are located west of North 19th Avenue.

Rose Park -- an 18.5-acre property off of North 19th Avenue, north of Oak Street -- received $75,000.

The regional park got around $74,500, which "will cover only a portion of what we are going to be doing in the park," said Martha Lonner, president of Friends of Regional Parks.

The money will be used to complete one of two four-acre lakes planned for the park. It will pay for landscape buffering, a trail system, completion of the swimming area, handicap-accessible fishing platforms, restroom facilities and creation of fish habitat.

The grant is being matched by donations to FORParks.

"People are very willing to donate money if they know it is a matching donation," Lonner said.

Once completed, the regional park will cover 100 acres and contain a 2,000-seat amphitheater.

The money for Rose Park will help pay for features like trails, benches and landscaping, said Craig Sward, co-founder of Course of Discovery, a non-profit group working to get the park up and running.

That grant is being matched with city funds for park land improvement.

The feature that will distinguish Rose Park from other city parks is its disc golf course.

Disc golf was banned from Lindley Park a few years ago after residents complained of unruly players there. But Rose Park is being built to accommodate the sport, complete with 12 "pole holes" holding baskets to capture the discs, Cary Silberman of Bozeman told the Chronicle in February.

The park began as a big flat field, scrubby and full of weeds. Silberman, who competes in national disc golf competitions, estimated that up to 100,000 cubic yards of fill dirt -- much of it donated by a local excavation company -- would be needed to complete the course.

While disc golf is a summer sport, Kate Gardner, of the city's Recreation and Parks Advisory Board, has said that the manmade hills will be good for wintertime sledding, too.

Rose Park supporters relied on a FORParks' survey of park needs to get the grant. Sward said FORParks decision to share the survey results was generous, since both groups were competing for the same pot of money.

"I remember sitting down, talking to them and saying, 'Maybe we will both win,' and we did," he said.

Walt Williams is at wwilliams@dailychronicle.com

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