KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – Kalamazoo County has a final plan for a brand new park, and it could be open this coming spring.
The Woollam Nature Preserve is located next to the Al Sabo property in Texas Township. It’s a former Rota-Kiwan Boy Scout Camp with 210 acres of land and a 50 acre lake.
Kalamazoo County Parks director Dave Rachowicz says their master plan is the result of meetings with stakeholders, the public and focus groups. He says they will need first to remove most of the buildings at the former camp.
He says the plan retains three bathrooms, an outdoor chapel for weddings, two lakeshore amphitheaters and a large multipurpose building.
He says they will be adding three covered picnic pavilions and a playground.
Rachowicz says based on public feedback, they will not have horse trails or permit ice fishing. He says the cost of improvements will be about $1.5-million which they plan to fund without using local tax dollars.
If the county board approves their plan, and all goes as expected, they could have an early opening in the spring with all the work completed by next summer. Its official name will be the Arthur E. & Mildred H. Woollam Nature Preserve.
