Members of the Manhattan community came out in full force once again, as project officials with the Wildcat Creek Watershed Resiliency Project hosted an Idea Workshop, Thursday night. Voices filled the room at city hall, as ideas – much like the creek itself, began to flow.
The overall goal of the meeting was to get input from the community on how the area could be redeveloped into an amenity, should the county receive $40,000,000.00 in block grant funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) National Resiliency Competition. As KMAN previously reported the project was chosen to advance to the final round of the competition, pending the completion of a detailed application process.
Ideas for a Wildcat Creek overhaul included things like rerouting the creek closer to the downtown area an
d developing a river-walk, adding small parks designed for picnicking, parking access for canoeing and kayaking, a zip-line attraction, and the addition of a beehive pollination and education space.
Although the ideas are at this time merely the result of a brainstorm, Bunger says that he and other project officials will now take the lengthy list of creative ideas, provided by an “engaged community” and use them while drafting the application.
Bunger says that the month of September will be dedicated to the application – with public hearings anticipated to resume in October, prior to submission of the application.
