Lincoln will have a new park in northwest Lincoln near 27th Street and Arbor Road on a portion of 154 acres that will also include conservation of 21 acres of saline wetlands and will eventually become the new headquarters of the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District.
The land was purchased from private owners in February for $3 million by the Solidago Conservancy, which works with landowners and other partners to conserve natural areas. The deal took years of planning by various groups — and a $1 million donation by the Dittman family and Cornhusker Bank.
Helping to create a park in north Lincoln was a dream of Alice Dittman, said John Dittman, her son and the bank's executive chairman.
Alice Dittman, who died in September just short of her 93rd birthday, had visited the property, her son said, and would be happy at the outcome of years of negotiation.
“This was one of her parting gifts to our community,†said Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird. “She blazed a trail as our city’s first female bank president during her leadership of Cornhusker Bank. And her interest in creating this park is why we’re here.â€
The new city park — which will be located on 58 acres of the land — will be called Cornhusker Bank Park and will be open, though not fully developed, by the end of 2025, said Lincoln Parks and Recreation Director Maggie Stuckey Ross.
The city purchased 58 acres for the park, the Lower Platte South NRD purchased 11 acres and the city plans to buy another 85 acres around the perimeter for conservation — including the wetlands, Stuckey-Ross said.
In addition to the gift from Cornhusker Bank, the city got an $870,758 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to purchase the additional land for conservation purposes, Stuckey-Ross said. The NRD contributed $600,000, the Saline Wetlands Conservation Partnership contributed $111,767 and the city used $487,485 set aside for parkland acquisition. The remainder of the purchase price came from donations through the Solidago Conservancy.
Mike Sousek, director of the Lower Platte South NRD, said the organization has outgrown its current location and had been looking for options for its maintenance facility and office space. The organization doesn’t have concrete plans of when construction might begin, but it’s in the planning stages, he said.
The land includes cornfields, wooded areas and a farmstead with a barn and other buildings.
"It’s a perfect, perfect match for everything we do,†Sousek said. “And I think we would be great, great, partners, great neighbors of the city of Lincoln and what they're trying to get accomplished."
The new location will provide space to expand NRD programs including habitat restoration projects, workshops and community outreach events, he said.
The various partners have worked for several years to buy the site, where officials held a news conference Thursday. Nicole Fleck-Tooze, executive director of the Solidago Conservancy, said officials approached the landowners about purchasing the land.
“For several years, the parcel we’re standing on was the dream,†Stuckey-Ross said.
It checks a number of boxes for both city and conservation purposes, she said: It’s in northwest Lincoln, where the Lincoln-Lancaster County Comprehensive Plan calls for a community park — with more than 8,600 residential units in the park service area. The land has access to paved arterials and is adjacent to city utilities. It includes 84 acres of floodplain for flood storage and more than 20 acres of saline wetlands.
“It’s not often that we have a chance to protect special places like this,†Solidago Conservancy’s Fleck-Tooze said. “It might be once in a generation or more that an opportunity comes along for the perfect site for a community park and protection of incredibly unique resources at the same time.â€
Lancaster and Saunders counties are the only places in the world where eastern saline wetlands exist, she said, and the purchase of these wetlands comes with the potential to restore another 20 acres.
The land connects with the city’s parks and trails, part of a network that extends from Wilderness Park on the south to the Prairie Corridor and Haines Branch on the southwest side of town, Fleck-Tooze said.
The park will be less than a mile from Alvo Road Trail, and the land is directly west of the 127-acre Arbor Lake Conservation Area and south of the 156-acre Shoemaker Marsh Conservation area, both of which are owned by the city.
The park will be the 22nd community park in Lincoln — which means it’s a larger park designed for community use, not just the neighborhood, and could include playfields, an inclusive playground, green space and shaded corridors, picnic table and covered shelters, off-street parking and will be connected to the city’s trail system, Stuckey-Ross said.
Additional fundraising and city dollars will be needed to add such amenities, she said, and the city will work with the community to identify which ones should be included.
Gaylor Baird said the new park will help tell the story of the community.
“The earliest peoples who came to this area came for the salt, they came to cure their meats. And later pioneers came and settled here, taking advantage of the natural resources,†she said. “Today we can tell that story and continue to educate young people about the roots of this community, the roots of our history and invite them to be a part of perpetuating that story and our identity.â€