UPDATE ONE – Hiawatha Golf Course Master Plan
Posted on 28 February, 2018The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is in the process of orchestrating a master planning process to explore methods of balancing water management and use of the Hiawatha Golf Course property. Several tasks are in process, and while the public process has not yet started, a first meeting for a Community Advisory Committee is being planned.
While staff had hoped for a fully seated CAC in January, several appointers have yet to make their selections. We’re working with those appointers, reminding them of the importance of their selection in the creation of a committee representative of the community and stakeholders. The CAC process is one of the best paths to a robust conversation supporting the master planning process. During the master planning process, the CAC will meet frequently, even as MPRB staff and consultants reach to others interested in the future of the golf course property through other formal and informal input opportunities.
The MPRB has updated its website with a page that will be directed solely to this project. Eventually, the site will be populated with a calendar of meetings and events, master planning progress updates, and presentations made during CAC and other meetings—in addition to the core materials gathered through the past few years of study. There will also be links to work being conducted by other agencies that might inform the work of master planning the golf course property, and a link that allows interested stakeholders to be notified about the project.
A request for proposals for a master planning consultant has been released. That consultant will be responsible for conducting assessments of the site, framing possible evolutions of the golf course property that recognize water management and use, estimating costs of various possible directions (implementation and operating costs), and, eventually, developing a preferred direction as the master plan. The consultant will not be under contract until mid-April. Before then, MPRB staff intends to engage the CAC in meetings directed to understanding the CAC and master planning process, and to reviewing information that has been gathered previously. A first meeting of the CAC—one focused on orientation to the CAC and the master planning process—is planned for March 28 at 6:30 pm, at the Nokomis Community Center. Formal invitations will be sent out mid-March.