DeBenedetti Park master plan to be unveiled soon

After nearly 30 years of planning, Lodi Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services staff will unveil the DeBenedetti Park master plan at a City Council meeting on Wednesday.

Following open public forums and community surveys, parks staff have compiled the data and created a plan based on community feedback, PRCS Director Jeff Hood said.

“People will see a plan that has been thoroughly vetted by the community,” he said. “From their participation at workshops to their responses in online polls, this is something that the community can embrace.”

After deciding to overhaul the original plans from nearly two decades ago, PRCS staff encouraged the community to offer their input on what they would like to see added to the park. They received more than 700 survey responses from community members interested in providing their input for the park, Hood said.

The new plans for DeBenedetti Park include sites for children to play, permanent bathrooms, exercise space, and picnic areas. Construction is expected to begin as early as fall of 2020.

“The majority of support was for fewer sports fields (than the original plans). People look at DeBenedetti a multi-use recreation site for playing and exercise,” Hood said.

DeBenedetti Park currently has recreational fields for residents and athletes to play and practice on.

The initial concept for the 20-acre park, rolled out in 2002 at a projected cost of $10.7 million, called for two football fields, two soccer fields, one basketball court, three 90-foot baseball diamonds, one 60-foot baseball diamond, two multi-use diamonds, and one soccer field.

Those plans were nixed due to a lack of funding.

In 2006, FCB Homes reached an agreement to pay the city $8 million to develop DeBenedetti Park. However, funding for the park was suspended when the housing market crashed in the late 2000s. The city was able to scrimp $1.7 million towards the project, which was used to establish a storm drain system for the park.

In recent years, as new developments have been built near DeBenedetti Park, new funding sources for the park’s completion have become available through developer impact fees,.

“The project is expected to cost $14 million, but we will be doing the improvements in phases,” Hood said.

The most expensive part of the project is the lighting for the sports fields, which is expected to be part of the project’s final phase.

A 2-D project model will be presented at the City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Carnegie Forum, 307 W. Pine St., Lodi.