City councilmen voted 4-2 Tuesday to commission the Neel-Schaffer engineering firm to upgrade the master plan for Propst Park.

Kevin Stafford, the contracted city engineer who works for the firm, said cost for the plan would not exceed $15,000 and would include several ways — including town hall meetings — for citizens to give input for what they want at the park. The new plan would update one the firm completed for the park nearly 20 years ago, as many of the projects it outlined have not come to fruition.

Councilmen discussed the park at its regular meeting Tuesday, after Stafford and three councilmen — Joseph Mickens of Ward 2, Pierre Beard of Ward 4 and Stephen Jones of Ward 5 — toured park facilities in Vicksburg last week.

In a video shown Tuesday from the tour, Mickens said looking at the Vicksburg park was like traveling into the future.

“(It’s a) totally new vision,” Mickens said. “This is out there in the 22nd century.

“I think recreation is like having a good football team in Columbus,” he added. “A good football team pulls people together. If we have good parks and rec … it will bring people together in the community. … If we can get this back in Columbus, this will be a winner.”

Primarily, the four toured a $20 million facility in Vicksburg that Neel-Schaffer designed just a few years ago, Stafford said. Its fields are all turf, meaning there is no regular landscaping maintenance required, and each field can be striped for baseball, football and soccer.

“You don’t have to have one field dedicated to one sport,” Stafford told the council Tuesday.

The new Vicksburg facility, which is run by the private management group Sports Force, also includes batting cages, a playground, a putt-putt golf course and ziplines. The city’s older park has tennis and pickleball courts.

Just one of the turfed fields at the new Vicksburg complex cost about $2 million to build.

Columbus’ current master plan calls for building, in separate phases, two five-field wheels for baseball and softball. The first phase would add four natural grass fields to the turfed Field of Dreams — which is a privately funded field that facilitates play for the physically disabled.

“A conversation we had is yes, you can build four more fields and finish out the wheel, but you still can’t play football, you still can’t play soccer. … Instead of spending $800,000 on two grass fields, do you spend $2 million and get a … field the community can enjoy year-round.”

There are also more ways to “skin the cat,” Stafford said, including fields that are only partial turf.

Propst Park already boasts tennis courts that can be retrofitted to facilitate pickleball, Stafford said. He even suggested the more extreme amenities at the Vicksburg facility could work at Propst.

“Propst Park sets up topography-wise great for a zipline if you wanted to do something like that,” he said.

Vicksburg issued bonds for its new facility that it repays through its 2-percent restaurant sales tax.

Though Columbus officials have resisted the idea of borrowing money to upgrade Propst Park, both Beard and Mayor Keith Gaskin have noted the city will generate at least $1.6 million over four years from its restaurant sales tax funds. It could also possibly use part of its $5.6 million COVID-19 relief allocation from the American Rescue Plan Act. Both expressed hope some private donations would support the project as well.

Stafford suggested an updated feasibility study/master plan and estimated it would cost between $10,000 and $50,000 to put together, depending on what facilities it encompassed and the whether it included programming.

For a plan that just focused on Propst Park, Stafford threw out a cap of $15,000, and Beard moved to immediately commission the study.

Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco asked for more time.

“Don’t you think this is a topic we need to have in a working session and get a little more direction before we make a commitment?” she asked.

Beard still seemed content to move forward.

“Right now, we’re basically trying to get a survey to see what are the needs of the park,” he said. “What do the people want to see? What do we want the park to look like? We already have a firm that does that type of work .. that can go ahead and start working.”

Ward 3’s Rusty Greene offered a substitute motion to table approving the master plan until Stafford presented a formal proposal in writing, something Stafford said he was happy to do. The substitute motion failed, with only DiCicco joining in support. Beard’s original motion passed with support from Mickens, Jones and Ward 1 Councilwoman Ethel Stewart.

Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.