ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

The Liberal community was shocked earlier this year to hear of Adventure Bay Water Park closing for a while due to renovations, and the project has now taken a big step forward.

Contract negotiations for design and build services with Hutton Corporation in partnership with Water’s Edge Aquatic Design for the design and construction of a new water recreation facility inside Light Park were approved by the Liberal City Commission earlier this month. The proposed facility concept includes a free-entry, unstaffed splash park space which can open as soon as temperatures are consistently above freezing along with a seasonally-staffed, paid-entry recreational facility featuring a lazy river and multiple recreational zones found in a standard water park. Funding for the project will be paid from the 1-cent Sales Tax fund, allowing the project to be completed without the need for property tax increases or new debt expenses.

Liberal City Manager Scarlette Diseker said this part of the work has been ongoing for a while.

“We made that decision and released it out to the public in March, and from there we drafted requests for demo proposals separate from design-build proposals to rebuild it, and we initially gave about 45 days or so for response,” Diseker said. “We ended up extending that, and it was during the extended time frame where Andy [Fahrmeier] from Hutton reached out. They were actually the first ones that did reach out, which I was very grateful for. That set my mind at ease in terms of knowing we had a quality company and then a Southwest Kansas located company who was interested in the project and just as excited about it as we were, so that kind of brought us to the present time where we took that to the commission and received final approval.”

“And when we when we saw the RFP from the city, we were we were pretty excited,” Fahrmeier said. “We think design build is a fantastic project approach for a project like this, and our company is a turnkey design build contractor, so we're really excited to see the opportunity to bring design build to a project like this.”

Diseker added there are many park amenities that have been discussed as part of the project.

“We want as many amenities as possible for a price tag that's reasonable, but my vision is this will be an area all ages can enjoy,” Diseker said. “The initial water park we had for years served us well, but I feel like it was more geared towards younger age children up to maybe late grade school, middle school type ages, and I really want everyone to feel comfortable being entertained in a place like this. We want public engagement. We've already gone through several phases of that, but we want to reengage since it's been since last December, and we want people to see things moving along. I think that excites our community, and they've been waiting a long time to have the features they've asked for, so we want to be the ones to be able to give that to them.”

That community engagement, Diseker and Fahrmeier said, will be extremely important in the coming months.

“Hutton is going to be both the architect and the construction contractor to build a project. But on the architectural design team, there are always special consultants, engineers, and in this case, being that it's an aquatics facility, we're going to have an aquatics designer,” Fahrmeier said. “And that group we're going to be working with on this is Waters Edge, with whom the city has been working with in regard to developing this project up to this point, so bringing them on the team made perfect sense. Brian Hill with Waters Edge is going to be the project lead for us, so all of that information, that knowledge he has developed over time is going to be able to be brought right into our team, so we're super excited about that. Any major public project of any sort, having good community engagement is super important. This is a  a facility that's going to serve the community and do it for decades. It’s important the city knows it’s getting a facility that not only aligns with everything that matches up with the goal of the city commission, but also incorporates input from the community members themselves.”

“And then with the previous surveys that had been handled through the city, as far as features that people were wanting to see or hadn't seen in the past, that wanted to see implemented, he will take those, and then also the in-person feedback that he received in December, when we had it the day of the Christmas parade, we'll be taking that,” Diseker said. “But then we will re-engage probably a couple of times with some focus groups and different individuals who can steer us and this project. For me, it’s important for us to make sure we're keeping our finger on the pulse. We want to make sure the temperature of the community still remains what it was a year ago and six months ago. It's very important I feel like we have included our community in the decisions we are making, and I pledge to be extremely transparent. We definitely want to see people engaged in this project and feel like they have a piece of it.”

Even though the project has taken a big step forward, however, Diseker said there is plenty of work to do before the gates open.

“We want to see this facility open to the public as soon as possible, but we also don't want to short circuit the planning and design process because we want to ensure this facility is the right facility and it matches up with what the city commission and all the community members are really looking for,” Diseker said. “I believe the preliminary timeline we had submitted to the city had us starting with the dirt work for the new construction in looks like in April 2027. We're going to be opening the facility in phases, with the first being the splash pad portion. Our goal is to open that by late summer so it's open and able to be used by the community before students go back in school in the fall. It’s important we take all the time necessary to make sure everything is good to go, which means the project could extend into the fall and likely wrap up in the winter to where it's 100 percent ready to go by the start of the season of 2028.”