<p><strong>T</strong>ens of thousands of people are estimated to visit Johnson County Park annually.</p>
<p>Horse enthusiasts attend shows at the arenas at the park. Campers rent space at the campgrounds following festivals and park events. Families have reunions and birthday parties at the park’s shelters.</p>
<p>For years, park officials have had a wish list of projects that they believed would attract more visitors to the park.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]
<p>Those plans now have a price tag: $22 million.</p>
<p>Johnson County Park officials recently revealed what some of their top wish list items would cost. The total wish list has about 14 projects. The priciest projects on the list include renovating Dunn’s Arena for $4.7 million, extending the campground in three phases for $1.4 million each, and adding a nature center and new park office for $5.1 million.</p>
<p>Park officials announced plans for the projects with estimated price tags at a commissioner’s meeting this week to get feedback on the projects from the three-member board. They plan to present the same to the county council, the funding arm of the county, next week.</p>
<p>No official approval has been given by the commissioners nor the county council, and the plans that were revealed were for discussion purposes, said Megan Bowman, Johnson County Park Superintendent.</p>
<p>The plans, a blueprint for the future, are fluid, and park officials do not expect to complete all the projects at once, but instead intend to possibly fund and tackle the projects as funding becomes available, Bowman said.</p>
<p>“It’s time for us to start looking at these projects and putting numbers on them,” she said.</p>
<p>Park officials met with private companies and worked with a development company that studied and analyzed the parks and came up with a list of feasible ideas. The park officials then looked over the work of the developer and decided which projects should be the priority.</p>
<p>All of the proposed work would be done at the county’s main park, a 622-acre park in southern Johnson County, near Edinburgh. The park’s budget is about $1 million a year, half of which comes from county tax dollars from the food and beverage tax and the other half generated from park use, such as from the park’s campgrounds and shelter rental fees, Bowman has said.</p>
<p>Most of the money in the budget is used to maintain the park, including the operating costs for aging buildings, she has said.</p>
<p>“These are projects that could have a return on investment and are out of reach of our budget,” she said.</p>
<p>The No. 1 item on the list, and one of the most pricey, is renovating and repairing Dunn Arena. Part of the reason Dunn Arena topped the list was because it is an existing building that has fallen into disrepair, and improving the building would likely attract more visitors and revenue, Bowman said.</p>
<p>“It exists, it doesn’t exist well,” Bowman said.</p>
<p>Dozens of horse shows take place at Johnson County Park annually, but people who host horse shows there typically have to make other arrangements for meals or space to hold a large dinner, because the park doesn’t have amenities to support those activities, Bowman said. Sometimes, show organizers decided not to host an event at the park at all, she said.</p>
<p>Renovations to Dunn Arena include making it a larger rental facility that could fit up to 350 visitors, which would address a large reason why some groups opt to host their shows elsewhere, Bowman said.</p>
<p>“It allows us to catch the eyes of horse shows,” she said.</p>
<p>A campground expansion is No. 2 on the list. The campground is becoming more popular after park events, such as Sparks in the Park, and the expansion would add more sites with variety, Bowman said.</p>
<p>“It would be different sites and enhancing what we already have,” she said.</p>
<p>Other items on the list include a campground store, which is an amenity campers have been asking for, more park shelters, playgrounds next to the park shelters, a bike playground, a snow hill, lake modifications, trails, a prairie area and reforesting.</p>
<p>All three commissioners said they supported the parks plans, but that the timing is bad with the county trying to find hundreds of millions of dollars to repair and rebuild roads in preparation for Interstate 69 and to expand the county’s overcrowded jail.</p>
<p>“With this amount of money we are talking about, it scares me,” commissioner Kevin Walls said.</p>
<p>Commissioner Ron West said he would have liked to see a breakdown of how each of the projects could make money, and commissioner Brian Baird asked park officials to consider upgrading the amphitheater, which could be a county tourism pull for people attending events at the new music center in Brown County.</p>[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="By the numbers" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p>Here is a look at the estimated cost of each project on Johnson County Park’s wish list:</p>
<p><strong>$4.75 million:</strong> Dunn Arena renovations and parking</p>
<p><strong>$1.45 million:</strong> Campground expansions in three phases</p>
<p><strong>$600,000:</strong> Campground store</p>
<p><strong>$575,000:</strong> Bike playground</p>
<p><strong>$5.1 million:</strong> New park office and nature center</p>
<p><strong>$500,000:</strong> Playground expansions in two phases</p>
<p><strong>$550,000:</strong> Snow hill</p>
<p><strong>$675,000:</strong> Lake modifications</p>
<p><strong>$550,000:</strong> Trail expansion in two phases</p>
<p><strong>$275,000:</strong> New prairie</p>
<p><strong>$185,000:</strong> Reforesting</p>[sc:pullout-text-end]
