Explorer Reports on Naranja Park Plans

Oro Valley's Naranja park plans still under review

Brian P. Nanos
April 18, 2007

Almost five years after Oro Valley created initial plans for the Naranja Town Site, the town council is still debating how extravagant the park will be.

Mayor Paul Loomis ended an April 9 study session by asking each council member what he would need to see before moving forward with plans to build the proposed 213-acre park.

Loomis said he is worried that if the council didn’t move forward with the plans “we’re still going to be kicking this thing around 10 years from now.”

After the town decides on a plan for the park, voters will dec ide whether to support the bond required to pay for construction.

At the meeting the council reviewed the cost of various construction options. The least expensive option – a basic plan that would include playing fields, courts and trails -- would cost $42 million to build.

The entire park as described in the master plan includes a fitness center, a skate park, a community center, a pool and a water park, a nature center, a BMX track and a dog park. Building that entire park at once would costs the town $164 million.

While Loomis was ready, by the end of the meeting, to ask voters to approve bond funding for the most expensive version — “Right now, I’m a full believer in going for it all,” he said — many of the other council members seemed hesitant to go forward with such a costly project.

“It’s nice to have the whole enchilada,” Councilman Al Kunisch said, “but I don’t think that the town can afford it.”

The first master plan for the site was completed in November 2002, after a 14-month community participation program that included a Web-based survey, group presentations, community workshops and public meetings.

At the April 9 meeting, Vice Mayor Helen Dankwerth worried that the final plan represented unrealistic, unaffordable hopes — “wish lists,” she called them — of the town’s various interest groups.

“We have, in the process, translated these wish lists into necessities, and they’re not,” she said. “I think we have to come back to reality because some of these dreams are turning into hallucinations.”

At the April 9 study session, the council also reviewed estimates for the park’s operating revenues and expenses. According to estimates provided by Webb Management Services, every year the park would cost $936,096 to run and earn $578,773 in rental and hospitality income, program revenues and user fees.

The council also heard a presentation by communications experts who spoke about the possible campaign to pass the bond funding the park would require.