GOOD HOPE, Ala. – The Good Hope City Council Monday night voted to move forward with the purchase of the 33.68-acre Dvorak property adjacent to Municipal Park. The expansion, which will connect the park to Deer Run subdivision along County Road 437, will allow the city to offer a variety of new recreational amenities to the community.
The City purchased the land for the appraised value of $220,000 and is in the process of selling a 3-acre plot of land along County Road 437 for $450,000. With a current note balance of $277,870, the City needed to pay $47,870 to complete the Dvorak property purchase. The council approved the payment of the $47,870, with half the funds coming from the City’s cash reserve and half from alcohol sales tax.
Mayor Jerry Bartlett and the council members are excited about all the possibilities that come with the purchase of the new recreation area.
Bartlett said, “We know we want at least 3.1 miles of trails back there because we want to host cross country events because that’s got really popular. We want it to be a multi-trail use, anything but motors. Bicycles, hikers, walkers, cross-country-that’s it, just no motorized stuff. We would like to have a centrally-located, nice pavilion with bathrooms. From there it would just be up to the council how we grow it from there, and everyone has their wish list. (Some) are talking about a splash pad, but who knows? The sky could be the limit.”
He continued, “We would definitely want to expand our playground and then eventually we would like to maybe have more pavilions we could rent for families.”
Rep. Corey Harbison added, “Dale Bryant with St. John (& Associates) engineers is right now working on a proposal for the council to accept for them to help design for future phases of the park. With the cross country trails and stuff, we’ve talked to the schools and that’s one thing with that investment, if they bring in tournaments, you can bring hundreds of people in with that tournament and that would generate money to stimulate the local economy. We’ve talked to several folks about grants. The City will want to do it in phases because you can only get so much in grant money at a time.”
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