AUGUSTA, GA./ EVANS, GA. - Columbia County commissioners approved a 20-year plan to improve Wildwood Park, which sits on Clarks Hill Lake. The $28 million dollar project is set to take advantage of the lake’s increasing popularity, both locally and nationally.

“We do have some interest in the improvements and we think it is something that needs to be done,” said Ron Cross, commission chairman. “I know Commissioner Ford in the past has called it a ‘diamond in the rough’ and has been one of the biggest advocates for this.”

The 975-acre park currently has 61 campsites, trails for hikers, bikers and equestrians, boat ramps, pavilions, a beach and picnic area, and is future home of the Professional Disc Golf Association’s headquarters and hall of fame.

The conceptual plans propose a 100-room lodge, 24 cabins and 26 additional RV camping sites. Some of these campsites will be reserved for equestrians to allow riders to camp overnight with their horses.

 

Planners have also proposed improvements to the park’s trails. Existing trails are to be extended and improved and more than 15 miles of new trails are to be added.

The plan calls for the relocation of the park’s beach, which is currently located on the southern end of the small peninsula and suffers from erosion due to the currents of the lake. The new location, on the eastern side of the park, is protected from these currents and will require less maintenance to keep up.

 

Other improvements to the park include a lakeside amphitheater with the capacity to seat 1,000 people and a community-built “super playground.”

 

“We want to give everything sort of a rustic look that fits into the environment,” said Andrea Greco, project manager for the proposal.

 

With these proposed facilities, Wildwood Park would have some issues to address before it could come to fruition.

 

The largest of these issues would be that Wildwood Park lacks water treatment. Due to its remote location, it would cost more to extend a sewage line out to the lake than it would to install a water-treatment facility on site.

 

“The most efficient way to deal with this would be to build what’s called a package plant out there,” said Mack Cain, who worked on the proposal. “They normally cost around $3 million, but it would be much cheaper than building a sewer line out there.”

 

Greco and Cain suggest that an on-site septic system could be used until the waste treatment facility is built, but this system would also need to be built, and due to its possible environmental hazards, would require the Army to sign off on it.

 

The Army, which owns the land and leases it to the county, will require an environmental assessment by the Army Corps of Engineers before the park’s improvements can be approved.

 

Within a year, work on the entry road and gatehouse of Wildwood Park could be underway. The funding for these improvements has already been collected and set aside by the county. Other improvements to the park would be built as projected funding becomes available over the next 20 years.

 

Commissioners agreed to go ahead with plans to conduct a feasibility study for the lodge. Funding for the lodge and other improvements will come from county taxpayers in the form of a local option sales tax.