Prosper Town Council members approved an additional $411,819 for Lakewood Park construction during an Oct. 8 meeting.
In a nutshell
The funds will pay for:
- 52 parking spaces added to the existing lot and a second lot
- Fence extensions and wind screening around four pickleball courts
- A Zap Stand Pad, a kiosk stand that holds an automated external defibrillator (AED)
- Evergreen tree screening, irrigation and sodding
Sorting out details
Lakewood Park’s pickleball courts have an existing four-foot fence but residents reached out to request a higher barrier, Parks and Recreation Director Dan Baker said.
The park was initially designed with 76 parking spaces, Baker said. However, updated designs that included splitting the three full-size soccer fields into multiple soccer fields require additional parking to prevent overflow parking in the nearby neighborhoods, he said.
According to a meeting presentation, 14 of the 52 new parking spaces will be added onto Lakewood Park’s existing parking lot. The remaining 38 spaces will be provided through a new parking lot pad next to the other lot.
Baker said multiple residents requested some additional amenities while creating the parking lot, including:
- Increasing the height of the natural shrub screening
- Planting additional trees to separate resident fences from the park
- Keep the grass at a slightly taller height than the town usually would and plant wildflowers
- Allow residents to construct wooden privacy fences to screen their backyards from the park
All of the requests are reasonable, Baker said. Members of the town’s Parks and Recreation Board also recommended the town construct artificial ridges between the park’s trail and the parking lot as an added layer of separation but council members did not include it in the final approval.
Something of note
Lakewood Park’s existing $5 million construction budget was not able to fund the additional amenities, according to meeting documents. The money will instead come from a combination of the town’s park fees, tree mitigation fees and interest from the 2020 bond program.
How it happened
Lakewood Park was included in a 2020 bond election and is on track to bring the first designated cricket field and pitch to Prosper. Construction was originally expected to finish in January 2025 but could now last until the summer, according to the town’s capital improvement projects dashboard.
Aside from the cricket field and pickleball courts, other park amenities include:
- A basketball court
- Baseball backstops
- Soccer fields
- A restroom facility
- A playground
- Trails
- Landscaping
