1-28-20 alternate lakeside park plan

The Fond du Lac  Advisory Park Board got it’s first look at a new Lakeside Park development plan at their meeting Monday evening.     Excel Engineering’s Tom Schermerhorn told the board that seven companies have committed about $4 million toward an estimated  $10 million cost to build an amphitheater, ice rink and expanded parking on Oven Island, and a restaurant and history  museum on the lighthouse peninsula.  “I think the general consensus of the group is that they would like to stay as close to this master plan as we can,”  Schermerhorn told WFDL news.  “I can’t speak for all the people who have made verbal financial commitments to the project regarding how far we can deviate from this plan and they still feel its the appropriate thing to do for the city.”  Schermerhorn says the group will be asking the council at their February 12 meeting to suspend plans to build a new pavilion at the park.   Park board member Shawn McCrary says he’s concerned about making sure the average Fond du Lac resident is not negatively impacted.  “I am a big suporter of tourism and I want to see Fond du Lac be a beacon where people want to come, but I don’t want to see Fond  du Lac become a place where the locals don’t want to come and enjoy  our assets anymore because it’s changed so radically that they don’t feel comfortable in their own park system,”  McCrary told WFDL news.  Park Board member Jane Dennis says the business leaders’ plan would transform the park and hopes the public weighs in before the city council votes.  “We’re being told this would bring more business, more employment to the city and we need that,”  Dennis told WFDL news.  “On the other hand it would bring more congestion and noise to the park, and for business interests.  I hope that we don’t lose sight of that.”