Gulf Shores, Ala. – (OBA) – Gulf Shores laid out an ambitious plan for the 127-acre Coastal Gateway Community Park on Sept. 11 with a variety of amenities from a road that meanders through the park to a recreation center, Fire Station No. 5 and, eventually, a new elementary school.

“Let’s make this a parkway, not just a roadway,” Consultant Ryan Collins with Dix Hite Consulting said during a presentation of the park masterplan at a town hall meeting at the Erie Meyer Civic Center. It was developed with input from residents and a steering committee headed by Councilman Joe Garris.

“We took all y’all’s suggestions and we came up with this masterplan and that’s where we are now,” Garris said. “I think y’all are going to enjoy what we have to show y’all.”

Plans call for that road to eventually connect to County Road 6 to the south and north to Foley, according to city plans in an effort to relieve some of the congestion on State Route 59.

The plan calls for three hubs of the park including the entry and education hub at the north entrance off of Coastal Gateway Boulevard that will include the elementary school in the northwest corner and Fire Station No. 5 in the northeast corner. A small lake will be between those two features as well as an outdoor education feature. Both will have frontage on the roadway.

In the center will be the recreation hub including a competition outdoor pool and splash pad, a complete recreation center similar to the Bodenhamer Center. It would also include a lake with a kayak launch, basketball and pickleball courts, a sand volleyball court, dog park, several multipurpose fields, skateboard park and a large pavilion for gatherings.

Also, there will be two public gathering spaces, including one with terraced seating for small live music events. An outdoor plaza could be used for hosting food trucks, farmer’s markets or other public events near the recreation center.

The gem of the recreation hub will be the playground on an island in the center of the largest lake. Both lakes will have wide walking trails around them with shaded seating along each of the trails.

Finally, the nature emersion hub will include a second smaller island in the lake to be developed as a bird habitat and seven wooded acres in the southwest corner of the park will serve as an outdoor nature area as well.

From now until about June, the project will be in the design phase which will include a plan for building the park in phases. First up will be the groundwork on infrastructure in the park and Collins said the hope is for that work to begin sometime in the summer of 2024.

City officials say the park will address the growing northern part of the city by adding amenities for the blossoming subdivisions along Coastal Gateway Boulevard.

“We have growth management and transportation issues, our school system growth, public safety needs, recreation needs and growth in north Gulf Shores,” Director of Recreation and Cultural Affairs Grant Brown said. “We’re trying to address some of those needs with this park. We don’t have the money to do it all at once so we’re working on a phasing plan.”

Dix-Hite representatives will go before the council in an upcoming meeting to present and ask for approval for phase one of the plan.