New park with aquatic center coming to Queen Creek

“I think the community has been asking for more parks, more spaces for Little Leagues and teams to practice and so forth. This has been many, many years in the making.””

Marnie Schubert, director of Communications, Marketing and Recreation

By Janet Perez
Twitter: @AzNewsmedia

The residents of Queen Creek can look forward to getting a new park with a multigenerational recreation center and aquatics center.

Last month, the town council approved funding for the new park facilities in phase 1 of the town’s Park Master Plan.

Phase 1, anticipated to take a few years to build, includes the 85-acre East Park with the recreation and aquatics centers, as well as the remainder of Mansel Carter Oasis Park.

The action at the Dec. 1 council meeting directs town staff to prepare for a $115 million bond to provide funding for the new projects. Once issued, the bonds will allow the projects to be built now and repaid over time through the town’s operating budget, with $21 million funded through impact fees specific to East Park. The action will not increase taxes.

“The town council has continued to prioritize public safety and transportation,” stated Queen Creek Mayor Gail Barney in a press release. “Thanks to significant progress in those areas – with more to come – and fiscally responsible planning, we are in a position to expand our recreational facilities to meet the needs of our community.”

Queen Creek’s Communication, Marketing and Recreation Director Marnie Schubert said council members had been hearing from constituents that they wanted more park facilities.

“Council members said we really want to find out for sure in a statistically valid survey. We did that survey over the summer, where we provided the community with a bunch of different options, and in the survey we had how much it would cost to build and how much it would it cost to operate,” Schubert said. “The public came back and said we really want an aquatics center, we want a recreation center, we want to see East Park built as a very high priority, we want to see Mansel Carter Oasis Park completed.”

In the survey conducted earlier in the year, 75% of residents reported wanting a town aquatic center and/or multigenerational center. Driving home the point are the results of a recent 2021 Citizen Survey in which 81% of Queen Creek residents reported visiting a town park during the past year, with 33% visiting a park more than 10 times.

“The citizen survey over time has always asked questions about parks and trails and things of that nature. In the latest citizen survey, we did see a little bit of a drop in satisfaction in availability of parks and trails,” Schubert said. “I think the community has been asking for more parks, more spaces for Little Leagues and teams to practice and so forth. This has been many, many years in the making.”

But with a community growing as quickly as Queen Creek, there were other building priorities to take care of, such as roads, water and sewer infrastructure, and fire and police departments.  

“Queen Creek is an active community, and we continue to see high usage at all of our parks,” Schubert said. “This council action allows us to build the much-needed parks and amenities that residents have been asking for, while still focusing on building and expanding roads, water and wastewater, and public safety services.”

The sale of the bonds is anticipated in spring 2022. East Park and Mansel Carter Oasis Park are forecast to be complete in late 2023, with the recreation and aquatic centers slated to be completed in summer 2024. But even with that flurry of construction, Queen Creek will still be lacking in parks.

“We'll still be behind, so in addition to building out all of the land the town currently owns for parks, we do need to acquire more park land,” Schubert said. “That's something council had been discussing at the last several meetings where parks was a topic because they do understand that even to meet the lower level of service we would still need to acquire land.”

Janet Perez
News Editor | Queen Creek & San Tan Valley
@AzNewsmedia

jperez@iniusa.org

Meet Janet
Janet Perez joined Independent Newsmedia as editor of the Queen Creek Independent and Florence Independent in 2020. She started her career in 1989 with the Gannett-owned El Paso Times. In 1992, she moved to Tempe and has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. She left Arizona for three years to work at New Mexico State University and Baylor University before returning to work at Arizona State  University. Missing the business, she went back to journalism in 2017.

Community: A long-time pet owner, she supports animal welfare causes.

Education: University of Texas at El Paso with a BA in journalism and a minor in political science. 

Random Fact: She had a head full of random facts.  

Hobbies: Reading, watching documentaries, cooking and playing with her dogs.