Teenagers are executing their best flips, dives and cannonballs off the diving boards of the Aquatic Center of Burdette Park.
It’s a hot Sunday afternoon and there are about 2,500 visitors using the pools. Overall it’s another busy day, said Burdette Park Director Zachary Wathen.
“Every shelter in the park was utilized today, and that could be utilized for a wedding, it could be utilized for a baby shower, it could be utilized for a graduation party or birthday party,” Wathen said. “What a lot of people do is, and what I encourage people to do is like, ‘Hey, have a party to shelter. Get discounted pool passes; since you're renting with us, make a day of it.’”
And that’s what lots of people are doing — renting the cabins, barbequing in the shelters. Wathen said this is an important time for Vanderburgh County’s only park — and that centers on the new Burdette Park Master Plan.
“So government entities — townships — a lot of nonprofits, they all have master plans,” Wathen said. “It gives them (stakeholders) a chance to give their input about the direction of said entity — in this case, the Burdett Park.”
This Master Plan was built with help from Explore Evansville and American Structurepoint and it was approved last Tuesday by the County Commission. It considers feedback from the public.
The new plan added several things based on public input — campground expansion, renovating the chalets, adding parking and others, were all things the public wanted to see done.
“The thing that stuck out to me the most, that I was very surprised by, was additional overnight accommodations and even something like a tree house with a zip lining course attached to it.”
Before getting too excited for a treehouse with a zip line, Wathen said a Master Plan is just a roadmap, and getting projects done depends on funding.
There are less dramatic projects they can start on right away.
“Some of that was ADA compliance updates,” he said. “Some of that was adding more parking, which is why the baseball fields are being tore out. The fields flooded, so we needed to tear them out anyway. (That) adds additional parking for us.”
While stakeholders had a lot of input, some of it isn’t viable, Wathen said, like bringing back the skating rink.
One big change the park has experienced is the uptick in pool memberships.
“We are fully staffed for the first time,” he said. “Last year was the first time we were fully staffed in a long time. So that allows us to open everything.”
He said the park is experiencing a renaissance. This is due to the momentum with new projects and a bright vision for the next five years.
The new pickleball courts are a big hit, as are the new playgrounds added in the past couple years. They’re continually upgrading Aquatic Center Infrastructure
“I think now, you know, 20 years from now, we'll look back at this three or four years we have coming up and say, 'man, the park really went through a big overhaul in that time period.' And I look forward to watching it 25 years now, some of the stuff we've put in get changed again.”
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