The Fremont County Commissioners met in special session February 15th to consider approval of an intergovernmental agreement with the Canon City Recreation and Park District and the Florence-Penrose RE-2 School District for the new regional park on 178 acres along Highway 115 west of Florence . The agreement is the culmination of several months of negotiations that will split ownership of the park property and irrigation ditch shares to allow each entity to pursue development of separate parcels.
The agreement will deed 131 acres of land to the Recreation District for development of multi-sports fields, Arkansas River fishing and boating access, and a future baseball-softball complex. Fremont County will have ownership of 47 acres to develop a community events center, outdoor and indoor arenas, and fairground facilities. The agreement provides security to the RE-2 School District for future shared use of the sports fields.
The agreement will allow the Recreation District and Fremont County to meet its commitment to Great Outdoors Colorado in 2005 for timely use of a $500,000 ‘GOCO' grant to begin development of the park. Initial work will deal with the highway access, the entryway, and development of utility plans for the site. A separate $300,000 Colorado Mineral Impact Grant application to pay for the Highway 115 access comes up for consideration in March.