New Lake Pflugerville Park with swim area, pavilion to be complete by next summer

New Lake Pflugerville Park with swim area, pavilion to be complete by next summer

Written by Amy Stansbury Friday, 05 September 2008

Grant, parks escrow money and city’s 4B funds pay for project

Lake Pflugerville is still fairly new, but it is already set to receive improvements through an approximately $800,000 project.

Lake Pflugerville is still fairly new, but it is already set to receive improvements through an approximately $800,000 project. By next summer, the area will feature a park on the north shore with a gravel beach, a pavilion, two covered and lighted picnic tables, a boat ramp, boat rentals and additional parking. The lake will also be lowered this fall to reinforce the banks that have eroded because of the prevailing south winds.

The lake was created as a water source for the city in March 2006. The $51 million project included securing 16 miles of easement, installing water lines, building a pump station at the Colorado River, building a water treatment facility and creating the lake itself. This was all funded by certificates of obligation issued by the city, according to Pflugerville City Manager David Buesing.

The park project is not funded by the city, though. The Lower Colorado River Authority contributed a $200,000 Partnerships in Parks grant, and the Pflugerville Community Development Corporation designated $100,000 of its fiscal 2009 budget for the project. The remaining $500,000 will be paid for by the parks escrow funds, which are generated by developers paying the city in lieu of preserving land.

“We have a choice for developers — we can either take land or money,” said Pflugerville Parks and Recreation Director Glenn Holzer. “We have been building that up for a long time. We kind of earmark it and try to match it with grants, and this is the kind of project we have been saving for.”

The PCDC money is 4B funding, which is generated by the city’s sales tax revenue and required by the state to be used for economic development or community facilities, parks and trails. Pflugerville Economic Development Director Charles Simon said the park project clearly has recreational benefits, but that is not all.

“Now, is it going to have an economic development benefit, too? You bet, because we’re going to promote it as a community amenity,” Simon said. “The lake is one of the best things we have here.”

Round-Rock based BWM Group designed the park. Holzer said the consultant had to consider the budget and make a recommendation on what amenities the city could afford. The Pflugerville Parks and Recreation Commission approved the project in 2007, and the final design was presented at an Aug. 21, 2008, meeting. Holzer expects to go to bid in October and have a construction company selected by the end of the year.

Water source

Before the lake was built, the majority of Pflugerville’s water came from the Edwards Aquifer, which sometimes ran low. Buesing said when city staff began realizing how much the community was going to grow, they began to plan for the future and eventually decided to build a 180-acre lake to provide water until at least 2040.

“In some areas of town today we still have a blend of well water and lake water, but pretty soon we’ll be straight lake water,” Buesing said. “By the spring of next year, all of the city will be on lake water.”

The lake can produce 15 million gallons of water per day, but is capable of producing more water as needed. The city has considered different phases in which the lake could be expanded to produce up to 18 million gallons per day, or up to 24 million gallons per day.

“They [the city] can actually even lay another line up and down our easement and they could take the lake up even more than that,” Buesing said.

Recreational uses

In addition to the lake’s primary purpose as the main water source for the city, it has recreational purposes, too. It is stocked with more than 60,000 catfish, sunfish, bass and crappie for fishing. A 3-mile granite trail was built around the lake, thanks to funding from a Texas Parks and Wildlife grant.

Major events held at Lake Pflugerville include the KIDFish Youth Tournament and Lake Pflugerville Triathlon. More than 100 children participated in the first KIDFish in June 2007, and more than twice that many participated in the tournament held this June. Pflugerville Information and Community Development Coordinator Kathy Ellis said before the KIDFish tournament, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department stocked the lake with fish so there were plenty for the children to catch.

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon founders and race co-directors, Glenn Beck and Kerri Veuleman, said the race has been a great success both years it was held, with 316 tri-athletes participating the first year and 366 the second.

“We could have registered so many more, but we were limited by space in the transition area so we had to turn people away,” Veuleman said.

The new park will allow more room so more people will be able to participate next year.

“When they do the new side of the park, we are thinking about using that side, which would give us more space for our transition area,” she said. “We want to be careful logistically about how much that area can hold.”

The Pfirecracker Pfestival was planned at the lake in 2007 but got cancelled because of rain. So this year marked the first Fourth of July Pfirecracker event, and thousands more turned out than were expected. Ellis, who was the lead organizer of the event, said she planned for 5,000 to 7,000 people, but more than 12,000 attended.

“We wanted to offer something for residents that was close to home where they wouldn’t have to spend a lot of money,” Ellis said. “That’s why everything was free. The city took care of everything. There was no admission, and we had free boat rides, train rides and face painting. And on top of that, this year we had a fuel crisis, so it was nice for people to not have to drive out of town.”

Ellis said they were not completely prepared with enough buses for the large number of attendees, but she is working to address the situation for next year.

Long-term vision

“We have a lot more things we want to do out there at Lake Pflugerville and see take place — more events,” Buesing said. “I’d like to start seeing more fishing tournaments for kids, and I think we could have live music or special events, and even restaurants.”

Buesing said the area is pretty rural right now, but as development occurs, a restaurant may consider coming to Lake Pflugerville because the customer base will be there.

“We did build a very good long-term water source for drinking, but we’ve really done a great thing with being able to build some of our facilities out there with very little money,” Buesing said. “And I think people really love that lake.”

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon

Glenn Beck and Kerri Veuleman first organized the Lake Pflugerville Triathlon in 2007. The sprint distance tri is a 500-meter swim,14-mile bicycle ride and 3-mile run held each June.

For more information on the triathlon, visit www.lakepflugervilletri.com.

Green Park

Pflugerville Parks and Recreation Director Glenn Holzer said he is doing what he can to build environmentally friendly features into Lake Pflugerville Park.

The following is planned for the park:

• Compost restrooms (existing) — waste is naturally broken down and absorbed into the soil
• Picnic tables with solar- and wind turbine-powered lighting
• 250 native and low-water usage trees were planted in July
• Irrigation system with bubblers at each tree rather than traditional sprinklers, which use more water

Photo courtesy HDR Engineering, Inc.