A park that Granger has been awaiting for an entire generation is finally happening, and officials want your input before they start developing it this year. That starts with an online survey and an in-person Open House Tuesday night.
The St. Joseph County parks board in 2000 bought 110 acres on Anderson Road, between Beech and Ash roads, with plans to develop a park there. But they’ve always just leased it to farmers because the county has never earmarked the money for a park.
In 2023 commissioners offered to spend $2.7 million in American Rescue Plan money for the park, if the county could also build a highway department garage there. But neighbors opposed the garage and so commissioners instead decided to build the garage in an industrial park in Granger.
County Parks Board President Larry Catanzarite then last year said Harris Township Trustee Ken Lindsay stepped up with an offer to lease the land from the county and develop it with township money, as he’s done at Brummit and Elm roads in recent years.
But Catanzarite says in the middle of those talks, county officials offered to let the board borrow money through bonds to build the park and also take care of some long-deferred maintenance around the park system. Catanzarite says they plan at least a $6.5 million bond and expect the park to cost at least $4 million. It won’t raise property taxes but it also won’t let them decrease to where they were originally before a past bond issue for projects that are now finished.
"We're kind of going OK, do we want to do this with the park, or do we want to fix the maintenance on this building," Catanzarite says.
Catanzarite says the deferred maintenance includes two projects in Clay Township. First is repairing the LaSalle Trail bridge over Juday Creek, near Cleveland Road.
"If we can't get that bridge fixed then we would eventually have to shut that down, which would kill the trail, so that's a key item that's in that bond."
Catanzarite says the parks board lost a lot of funding in 2013, which led to deferring maintenance. Another priority is replacing the amphitheater roof at St. Patrick’s Park, once the home of the popular Firefly Festival.
"Just to keep it from deteriorating any more until we can decide what to do with it," Catanzarite says.
The county asks the public to complete an online survey on what they’d like to see in the planned Anderson Road park. They’re also hosting the first of three Open House events at Discovery Middle School Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. Other forums are planned for April 24 and May 29 at the school.
Catanzarite says county officials and their design consultants will be answering questions and looking for feedback.
"DLZ, the redevelopment commission, all those people will be there to answer questions but it's also a public input. What do you want to see in your park?"
When the park plans included the highway garage, the plans called for an entrance connecting to Beech Road. But now the only entrance will be the existing service drive that's now used by farmers and for trucks dumping leaves that are collected curbside by private companies.
Catanzarite says the park is long overdue.
"There's a big percentage of St. Joe County population that lives in that area that don't have a county park," Catanzarite said. "Harris has done a great job with putting a couple of parks in. They're smaller parks and they don't have the amenities. On a personal basis, I've been waiting for this. I signed the purchase agreement for Anderson Road 25 years ago, so yeah, I'm excited, very excited."
