About a year after voting to pursue a federal grant to craft a joint parks and recreation master plan, the city of Columbus and Lowndes County are gearing up.

In January 2023 both the council and board of supervisors approved jointly pursuing a United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development Grant to conduct a study of each entity’s recreation offerings.

The money was awarded late last year, but not as much as had been requested.

“We asked for about $150,000, and we ended up getting $97,263,” explained County Administrator Jay Fisher. “What happened was the USDA came back to us and said they wanted to give us the award, but they couldn’t afford the full amount and could we do it for less.”

There is no local match required, Fisher said.

Both city and county are in the process of expanding recreation offerings. The county just opened its $12 million sports complex off of Highway 82 West, which includes eight baseball/softball fields and a playground. The city recently approved about $3 million in bonds to complement about $1.6 million in cash on hand with the intention of revitalizing its park system, with the bulk of the money earmarked for Propst Park. The old youth softball fields will be turfed and turned into baseball fields, while the old baseball fields will be reoriented as softball fields.

The city and county have now put out a request for qualifications, with responses due by 3 p.m. Jan. 18, Columbus Chief Operations Officer Jammie Garrett said. The council will likely pick a consultant to perform the study at its Feb. 6 meeting.

The consultant will do a deep dive into recreation offerings in both city and county, City Engineer Kevin Stafford said.

“You’ll get a look at what you have, and then a look at the demographics that are served by those resources,” Stafford said. “You may have some areas that are overserved in this category, or underserved in (another) category.”

The study will also highlight areas with duplicate services, Stafford said.

“It will help us identify areas where we would probably see some economy of scale if (the city and county) joined forces,” Stafford said. “We want to be able to share resources, but not duplicate services.”

Finally, the study will look at operations and maintenance costs systemwide, both for existing services and programs as well as potential additions.

“It will tell us what we should be realistically putting back every year for operations and maintenance, for everything from herbicide to turf replacement to mowing grass and replacing lights,” Stafford said.

Garrett said she was especially interested in that piece of the project.

“I want to get an idea of what the overall maintenance costs for the city and how to maintain the park after the improvements,” Garrett said. “I also want to look at staffing. I know we’re insufficiently staffed now, and I’d like to hear what the study says about what we need.”

Fisher said he thinks the study will be very helpful for plotting the growth of the new sports complex.

“I hope we’ll get expertise on planning for future growth and opportunities for expansion,” Fisher said. “One of the things we don’t really know is how much it is going to cost us on a year-to-year basis to run the sportsplex. It’s our first year, it’s brand new, we have projections but we’re already incurring costs we didn’t plan on.”

Fisher said he also wants to be careful not to duplicate things the city already does well.

“I fully expect the city and county will both sponsor their own baseball leagues, but if there are other areas where we’re competing I hope they will identify that for us and tell us where we can be complementary,” Fisher said.

Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.