South Golden will have a new park … eventually

The Heritage Road area is getting a new park, but exactly when and what it’ll look like is still in the works.

The City of Golden owns 14 acres of undeveloped land near Colfax Avenue and Heritage Road. The city bought the land in 2010 for $1.3 million, with Jefferson County covering 25% of the cost.

This spring, Jeffco Open Space plans to transfer the adjoining 6 acres, called the Bachman property, to Golden.

The Bachman property, a former residence at the corner of Heritage Road and Colfax Avenue, was previously owned by Martin Marietta Materials, but was deeded to Jeffco Open Space during last year’s land exchange. Open Space announced it intended to transfer the Bachman property to Golden for a park site.

In total, the city will have 20 acres between Heritage Road and Zeta Street, nicely situation close to Jeffco’s Apex and Tincup Ridge parks, Golden’s Heritage Dells Park, and other surrounding trails.

However, building a park on the acreage will be “challenging” with “a lot of moving parts,” as officials said at a March 16 parks advisory board meeting.

The Bachman property is especially tricky, Golden’s parks manager Chad Meinert explained March 22. The property is along the Lena Gulch floodplain and adjacent to Colfax Avenue, so officials aren’t sure whether or how much of the property might be dedicated to floodplain mitigation and/or Colfax Avenue redesign.

While waiting on the property transfer from Jeffco, Meinert said the city’s conducting a historical and archaeological assessment of the Bachman property and evaluating the floodplain and drainage through Lena Gulch.

The city has started looking at some design companies to engage with the Bachman property and/or the city’s adjacent 14 acres, but Meinert said there wasn’t a firm timeline for hiring a design company or building a park.

The undeveloped 14 acres, which Meinert said the city refers to internally as the pending parcel, has unofficial dirt trails running through it with signage denoting it as city property. There is a sidewalk that runs down from a subdivision north of the property, but currently doesn’t go anywhere. Meinert said that will likely become an access point for the future park.

Meinert stressed how even an official park name isn’t firmly hand yet. Whether it’s called Bachman Park, Lena Gulch Park or something else would require a separate vetting process, he explained.

While so much is up in the air right now, Meinert had full confidence in the future park. He expected city officials to have a better idea once all the assessments are done at the Bachman property.

“It’s important that we have an understanding of that land and area,” he said. “ … We just don’t know at this time. Until we have a better understanding of what’s there (on the Bachman property), it’s hard to determine the course of action.”