Lakeland residents got their first glimpse of the master plan for the suburb’s athletic complex last week, a plan that envisions a 100-acre site with a skate park, an 18-hole disc golf course, splash pad and trails.

The major recreation facility, unveiled during the suburb’s Parks and Recreation/Natural Resources Advisory Committee monthly meeting, is planned for the southwest corner of Memphis-Arlington and Canada roads. Among the other amenities are a variety of athletic fields.

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“We’re pretty happy with how this came out,” Lakeland Parks and Recreational Director Patrick O’Mara said. “We know that this is still a bit ambitious, but it does address many of the requests from the survey that went out. I see this as a fully realistic project that could happen in this iteration.”

Construction is already underway on the $1.2 million first phase, which includes two full-size soccer fields and a parking lot. A $500,000 grant from the state is part of funding Phase 1.

Lakeland brought on Barge Design Solutions, Inc. earlier this year to re-imagine the overall plan for the site. A previous design was unusable due to 3.5 acres of wetlands and a stream discovered there last year.

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“Unfortunately, they were discovered in the area where the first master plan had located athletic fields,” Mark Donley, a landscape architect for Barge Design and a member of the commission, said. He added that to avoid additional development costs, they shifted the first two fields and associated parking to the northeast corner of the property.

With those changes, the master plan, which is still in the first draft stage, was updated to maintain a cohesive overall plan. The previous plan included a large lake in the middle of the park with boat rentals. In addition to the environmental issues, the 100-acre site the city bought in 2004 presented the design team with other challenges. 

“From wetlands to the steep topography, the site has it all. Even has a major gas line easement that crosses a portion of the property,” Donley said. “We wanted to reduce or limit the development impacts to the site by placing the features to fit the existing conditions, like placing athletic fields on the flatter, more level areas, and having uses with low development impacts like primitive trails and disc golf located in the mature wooded areas.” 

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Barge worked with the Lakeland officials who surveyed residents about features in the athletic park they felt were most important.

“A skate park was one of the higher-rated uses, and we felt it was important to include and fit in with the site’s topography,” Donley said. “The disc golf course is a great use for some the more rugged parts of the site because it requires minimal clearing, and it can be tailored to fit the site as needed. It also works well with the other uses, like the trails.” 

Lakeland city officials met several times with Barge and came up with a couple of options before narrowing it to just one. The 18-hole disc golf course will be the first in the city.

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“That’s a great use of the pipeline area because we’re not trying to ask to put a lot of infrastructure there,” O’Mara said. “As long as we keep the grass area clean, we can easily have disc golf going on there all the time.”

Plans for the park also include two 300-foot softball/baseball fields and one 200-foot softball/baseball field. O’Mara noted the limited number of baseball and softball fields in the city and wanted to address that shortage.

Picnic table stations will be situated throughout the park, with a trailhead leading into its southern portion with walking and biking trails. Pickleball, tennis courts, an outdoor bike track or a splash park are among the other possibilities on the land.

 “I’m very encouraged by this first draft,” said Lakeland Vice Mayor Michele Dial, liaison to the parks and rec board. “It encompasses so many of the residents’ ideas from the survey. The actual build-out will come in phases as resources allow. My hope is that we have a cohesive and doable master plan by the end of the year.”