News

Park swap clears way for minigolf move

Outlined in blue is land city would convey to the Henderson County School Board in exchange for the county-owned Edwards Park property. Outlined in red is parkland the School Board could acquire later.

By Amy B. McCraw, Published: August 9, 2022

The city of Hendersonville moved a step closer to relocating the Laura E. Corn Minigolf Course last week when the City Council adopted a resolution to exchange property with the county School Board.

“This has been a long time coming,” Mayor Barbara Volk said as the council considered the resolution during its regular monthly meeting last Thursday.
The council unanimously approved the resolution that calls for the School Board to swap Edwards Park for land at the city-owned Berkeley Park. Hendersonville also agreed in the resolution to pay the school board $250,000 in the exchange.
Hendersonville needs Edwards Park for the relocation of the minigolf course, which will be removed from Boyd Park when the city begins construction of a new Fire Station 1 on the property.
The school system will receive 16 acres of Berkeley Park in the swap. The historic baseball stadium in the park will be used for Hendersonville High School athletic facilities. The resolution also gives the School Board right of first refusal to buy the remaining portion of Berkeley Park — 21.3 acres — on the north side of Balfour Road if that property does not become the site of a manufacturing plant.

In April the Henderson County Board of Commissioners and the City Council voted to authorize $11.5 million in tax incentives in an effort to land a manufacturing company that said it plans to invest $185 million and bring 117 jobs paying at least $52,400 a year in a new plant. The county’s jobs-recruiting agency, the Partnership for Economic Development, has not since then updated the city and county on the recruitment effort for the prospect, which Commissioner Michael Edney called “the largest economic development project in our history.”

If the manufacturing plant passes on the Hendersonville site, the School Board would then have the option to buy the remaining Berkeley Park land for a payment of $350,000 plus a one-acre field behind the school system’s central office and behind the public library. Terms of the sale would limit use of the property, at 414 Fourth Avenue West, as a park, with activities from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

In conveying both the 16 acres and potentially the remaining 21.3 acres, the city reserves an easement at least 20 feet wide around the perimeter to accommodate a greenway. (Both the city council and Henderson County’s greenway master plan envision a northwestern extension of the Oklawaha Greenway, which now ends at Berkeley Park.) Finally, the resolution requires the School Board to grant the public access to the land it acquires at no charge. That condition applies to the parkland and tennis courts but not to historic Berkeley Mills Stadium or high school athletic fields the School Board and county may build there.

The council voted in June to spend $350,575 to hire a New Jersey company to build a new minigolf course at Edwards Park.
City staff had also originally planned build new tennis courts at Patton Park to replace those that will be removed at Boyd Park to make way for the new fire station. But on Thursday council started exploring pickleball courts at Patton Park. The idea  came about after the city heard feedback that pickleball courts are needed more than tennis courts. After a lengthy discussion about how many pickleball courts might be possible or needed at Patton Park, the council decided to take the issue up again at a future meeting, either Aug. 24 or in September.