Six acres added to Parque de Vida

Six acres added to Parque de Vida

Jan. 24, 2001

MAYOR JOE KECK (left) and Chris Burkett, city parks and recreation director, look over six acres of land near Parque de Vida on Wednesday. The land was donated to the city in December.

By Janelle Holden
journal staff writer

A six-acre donation to Parque de Vida surprised city officials in December. Former resident Richard Speck, who now lives in Denver, donated the land, which adjoins the park on the east, and the newly purchased Wheeler property on the south.

Speck said he donated the property because it was too expensive to develop and the city could "use that land."

"I thought the best thing to do was give it to the city and at least they would get the benefit out of it," said Speck.

Burkett, the city’s parks and recreation director, had written Speck a letter earlier in the year asking him if he had any interest in donating the land.

"Then, in December, he calls up and says, ‘I want to do this deal now!’" said Burkett. "He said, ‘Do you think we can do this?’" I said, ‘I think we can give it a real good try.’"

The property was appraised at $80,000, about as much as the city paid for the 11.4 acres it purchased from Bernice Wheeler last year.

Speck said he didn’t put any conditions on the donation.

"I plan to be around, but I don’t have any compelling interest to go down and tell them what to do with it. I assumed it will be used for city parks and recreation and if it isn’t, there isn’t anything I can do about it," said Speck.

Speck’s property, triangular in shape, is separated from Wheeler’s by a ditch bank. Although the city doesn’t have any plans for the new property yet, Burkett said the addition will help out existing plans for the Wheeler property.

With help from the Rotary Club, which received a $30,000 grant to build baseball fields, the city plans to put two baseball fields, a BMX track, and parking in the Wheeler area. The city can then flatten out a portion of the ditch bank to slide the fields to the south a bit more and prevent crowding the fields.

Burkett said before any plans are made for the new park area, the parks and recreation committee will have several community meetings and a meeting with city council.

"We really hesitate to put any more ball fields back there, as you can see it’s fairly angular, and we don’t want to take this entire ditch bank down. Also, we don’t want to crowd ball fields right up to the back of housing areas. We’d really rather look at some type of open space, natural space, whatever it might be."

Burkett said putting in a trail is one possibility.

Parque de Vida was purchased in 1994 from the Carpenter estate, and finished in 1997. The new park area, along with the Wheeler acreage, will probably remain part of Parque de Vida and not take on a separate name.

Normally, when new parks are put in, Burkett said he is used to seeing some resistance from residents who say, ‘What a waste of money. We don’t need it. Why put a park there?’ and then two or three years later admit they were wrong.

"Sometimes you just have to take that opportunity to just show them how it can be done, you are going to take care of it, the benefit of it to the community, for people to realize and go, ‘Yeah, this isn’t so bad’," said Burkett.

Keck said that it’s apparent residents use the park. "Just drive by there any spring, summer, or fall day and you can see hundreds of people out there, almost consistently," said Keck. Burkett said when he comes to work every morning at 7, people are walking in the parks.

And there’s still potential for new park areas.

"It looks bright for the community. We’ve got some assets that many larger communities do not. We’ve got opportunities for open space and recreation that even in Durango they don’t have," said Burkett.