Acerage purchased for park, Celina Record

City purchases acreage to expand Old Celina Park Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com Mar 16, 2016 Old Celina Park is about to grow a little larger. Later this month, the city will complete the purchase of a pair of land parcels north of the park, at 12670 FM 428 in Celina, which will add about 19 acres to the nearly 45-acre complex. The total purchase price for the acreage is $1.681 million, of which $500,000 will be paid for with monies allocated through the Collin County Funding Assistance Program. Since 1999, the program has made funds available to nonprofit organizations and cities that submit to an application process in an effort to gain financial assistance with park and open-space improvements and trail construction as well as park land acquisition. Cities are required to match funds provided through the program dollar for dollar, which Celina was able to do by charging and collecting various fees from residential and commercial developers that have or intend to construct projects throughout the city. “Those (fees) get put into a fund that we use (to purchase) park land,” explained Michael Montgomery, the city’s administrative services manager. The city has applied for and been awarded monies from the county’s funding program for three straight years. From 2013 to 2015, it received a combined $1.2 million, which it also used to help purchase two tracts of land on which a 100-acre park will be constructed in the forthcoming Parks at Wilson Creek residential development at the far eastern end of Sunset Boulevard. “It’s just great that Collin County is such a great partner in that Celina for the last three years has been able to utilize this program,” Montgomery said. “Without this partnership with Collin County, we wouldn’t be able to get as much land as we’ve gotten in the last three years.” The purchase of the additional acreage adjacent to Old Celina Park was necessary, Montgomery said, to accommodate the increasing numbers of residents who utilize the space. The Celina Parks and Recreation Department “keeps that land so busy” with practices and games for its organized sports programs, he said, “it’s busting at the seams.” The city’s youth sports programs have experienced tremendous growth in recent years, Parks Superintendent Cody Webb said, and the park’s fields are consistently booked. “One thing we don’t have is enough open space,” he said. As a result, some programs have been moved from Old Celina Park to facilities at Celina High School. “Which is not a bad thing; it’s a good thing,” Webb said, “but we like to keep everything centrally located if we can.” The additional park acreage will likely become a “multiuse area,” he said, and could someday have baseball, soccer and football games played on it. In the short term, however, Montgomery said the space will likely be used to remedy a decidedly less-sporty situation. In recent years, the city has borrowed the land it is now purchasing from its current owners to serve as a parking lot for attendees and vendors during the large festivals and other special events held at the park, including the former Celina Balloon Festival (now called Parkfest). “A lot of times, we’ve had conflicts because the people that own the land lease it out to local farmers, so they would have crops (planted on it) and we wouldn’t be able to park on it” when it was needed, Montgomery said. “Obviously, we respect those landowners, but for the master plan of the city, we really needed (to purchase) that land,” he said. Celina Mayor Sean Terry echoed that sentiment. He said purchasing the land “is going to allow us to expand the park at some point to the north, and it gives us control” over its use once the proposed Celina Parkway thoroughfare is constructed nearby. As the city’s infrastructure and commercial developments flourishes, he said there will be opportunities for the city to work with surrounding landowners on projects. “That’s going to be such a key location of the city with those major roads going north and south of there, and then (Collin County) Outer Loop going east and west, you’ll have a lot of things right there. “We’ve talked to the Friscos of the world and the Planos of the world. One thing they wish they had done a little more of when they were a growing city was be strategic about buying land they could get a hold of,” Terry said. “That’s a beautiful park out there,” he added, “and being able to have another 15 or 20 acres to be able to add on to … you get the flexibility to do a lot things out there.” Follow the Celina Record on Twitter @celinarecord.