Park Development Cost

[The One]

Does anyone have a fixed park development cost, used to justify park development fees in lieu as charged to developers in place of construction of park infrastructure? Any examples from the Southeast would be helpful.....I'm looking for a per square foot or per acre cost of construction for fully developed active parks.

Or do you know of a jurisdiction that has calculated this number?

 

[Budgie]

I have a couple of LOS studies that have estimated replacement costs for various types of equipment, buildings, vehicles, etc.... Do you think these would help? One of them is for a community in North Carolina. I'm actually working on an existing LOS study as part of our Comp Plan update.

By the way, is your avatar, "Peter Sellers" or someone a little bigger and more interesting.

 

[The One]

I'm just looking for places that have completed the analysis required to determine the per square foot costs involved with developing the infrastructure for neighborhood parks. Used to determine park impact fees.

My avatar is Peter Sellers aka Gui Gadwar from Return of the Pink Panther :-D
Gotta love that red smoking jacket :-c
Sellers is my all time favorite movie star, I wish he hadn't smoked three+ packs a day :-#

 

[Main Street Maven]

I have also unsuccessfully looked for a square foot cost for parks in the past. The cost seems to vary quite a bit by type of amenity, landscaping, etc. An approach that I used once to estimate the cost of a neighborhood park was to get costs associated with the what I thought be the amenities that the community would expect/desire, figured out how large an area would be necessary to house all those amenities, then divided by square footage. I also made sure to add in costs for paths, lighting, planting. I got the costs for each element from a couple of books, One was Means (I think) and the other was put out by a parks organization, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called.

It was definitely a time consuming process...

 

[The One]

Example

Just got information from a nearby City regarding a recently completed park:

9 acres in size
$1 million development cost (not including land....was dedicated)
about $2.55 a foot

 

[Plan Man]

Just got information from a nearby City regarding a recently completed park:

9 acres in size
$1 million development cost (not including land....was dedicated)
about $2.55 a foot

Of course it varies by the "activeness" of the park and the type of facilities within the park, but in our recent study of parks developed in the last ten years, the average for active parks across the city was about $230,000 per hectare or about $92,000 per acre. For a City in Ontario. Some of the base esimates we used per amenity are as follows (in Cdn $):

Gravel parking lot $1,200
Asphalt parking lot $2,400
Toddler play structure $20,000
Toddler play area $20,000
Junior play structure $35,000
Junior play area $35,000
Senior play structure $50,000
Clean and green $118,000/hectare
Entrance sign $2,500
Full basketball court $20,000
Field House $100,000
Mini soccer field $70,000
Full Soccer Field $140,000
Baseball diamond $420,000
Softball diamonds $245,000
T-ball field $65,000
Tennis court $110,000.00

These are just general estimates for our development charge estimation.

Hope this helps.

 

[The One]

Cost Range

Thanks Plan Man :-D :
The range seems to be between $2 and $3 a foot (US) depending on the level of finish for active neighborhood park construction.