Board briefed on improvements
Colorado Parks and Wildlife will be making significant improvements to north Sterling State Park in the coming year.
Park Manager David Piper briefed the Logan County Commissioners on the new visitor center planned for the park, and other improvements. The briefing came during the commissioners’ regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday.
Piper said the $5.2 million project will include a gift shop and other amenities for the public, and staff parking garages. Also on the construction list is a nearby storage building and maintenance shop. The facilities will be built just inside the south entrance to the state park near two large campgrounds. The old visitor center will be demolished and the area turned into a children’s playground.
Piper said the project was part of the state’s master plan for the park, but has been delayed by budget cuts in recent years. Some of that funding has been restored, and funds from Great Outdoors Colorado have been made available for the project.
In addition to the new visitor center complex, there will be improvements to the lake’s swim beach, where shoreline stabiliza
tion is being done to halt erosion and undermining of sidewalks and other infrastructure there. A walkway will provide access over the stabilization area to the beach.
More shade shelters will be added to the park before the Memorial Day weekend, and there are plans for two car-charging stations.
The biggest news for campers is the upgrading of both campgrounds from 30 amp service to 50 amp. Piper said the original electrical service was installed in the 1990s before the explosive growth in the size of recreational vehicles and trailers.
If materials and parts costs don’t continue to spiral upward, Piper said, construction on the new visitor center could begin by September of next year.
In other business Tuesday the Board of Commissioners also conducted a public hearing on the county’s proposed 2023 budget of $51,446,802 and the Logan County Pest Control District budget of $436,967.