Construction to start on 100-acre Henderson park

By Conor Shine

Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011 | 9:52 p.m.

A dusty parcel of land at the corner of Stephanie Street and Wigwam Parkway in Henderson is about to be transformed into a desert oasis built around a 30-acre lake.

The site is the future home of Cornerstone Park, a 100-acre, $16.4 million project that has been planned since 2005.

When completed, it will be among the largest of the 50-plus parks in the Henderson system and the only one with a lake.

The lake is the centerpiece of the project, but it won’t be open for paddle boating or fishing like some residents had hoped.

That’s because the gravel pit is a collection point for several storm water runoff channels. The influx of oils and chemicals from streets and lawns after a heavy rain make the water unsuitable for such activities.

“We can’t control the quality of water going into the lake...We have no way to purify it,” Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Kim Becker said.

Instead, the park will focus on “passive recreation” such as picnics, bird watching and simply hanging out lakeside.

There will be some playground equipment but no baseball diamonds or soccer fields. Plans for future phases of development include basketball and volleyball courts.

Construction could start as soon as next week, following a vote Tuesday night by the Henderson City Council to award the $11.3 million construction contract to APCO Construction. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of next year.

Funding for the project comes from the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. The grant the city received expires at the end of next year, forcing Henderson to finish the project or risk losing the money.

Becker said planning the park was more involved than other projects because of water quality and environmental tests that had to be conducted.

Concerns existed about the lingering threat of contamination from perchlorate, a rocket fuel chemical once manufactured in Henderson. But Becker said the concentration in the water has gone down over time and now poses no danger.

The site was originally envisioned as a detention basin, and plans for the park have gone through several iterations before a final design was settled upon, park project manager Patricia Ayala said.

The park will be organized in tiers, with the upper edges of the site being developed for recreation and picnic areas, including a corporate picnic area that can host up to 1,000 people, she said.

Further toward the bottom, the lake will be left in a more natural state, and the parks department will reintroduce natural vegetation into the eco-system.

Councilwoman Kathleen Boutin has lived down the street from the gravel pit since 1995 and remembers the day when trucks rolled in and out all day and bright spotlights illuminated the site at night.

“It was the gravel pit, a big stretch of desert and then my house. There was the dust, the ash, the noise,” she said.

Boutin said she’s thrilled the park is finally getting built to match the growth and development in the rest of the neighborhood.

“This is the final piece of the puzzle,” she said.