Bend park board OKs Colorado spillway project

For years, the community has pushed to make it safer — and two years ago, taxpayers made it a priority with an approved bond measure. Tu esday night, the Bend Park and Rec Board approved plans for the Colorado Dam Safe Passage Project.

“This is going to be Oregon’s very first whitewater park,” Bend Paddle Trail Alliance member Jayson Bowerman said earlier Tuesday .

At the park board’s meeting Tuesday night, members chose the more expensive of two designs created to provide safe passage through the dam.

One option would have create a static flow and came with a $7.2 million price tag. The second, chosen option includes an adjustable wave system and will cost more than $7.5 million.

“We want to give the community the ability to tune the wave features for the best possible user experience in the whitewater channel, and also gives you the ability to adjust for various water levels,” Bowerman said. “It’s kind of an insurance policy against various future changes.”

To help cover the added cost, the Bend Paddle Trail Alliance committed to raising another $233,000 — that’s in addition to the $900,000 they already have promised.

“The enhanced option allows us to put in the bladder system, which allows us to change the waves and the features, based on water flow,” said Justin Rae of BPTA.

The alliance is raising funds to cover loans they have arranged to provide the extra $233,000.

But with costs coming in above earlier estimates, the park board also approved using the entire bond measure contingency fund — about $1.2 million — on the Colorado spillway project.

While Bend Park and Rec is set to move forward on the spillway project, the organization also has put the brakes on another project: renovation of the Bend Senior Center.

“What started out as a $500,000 project became nearly $1 million,” Recreation Director Matt Mercer said. “We do not, from the staff’s standpoint, think that $1 million investment has an immediate return.”

Construction on the center originally was slated for this fall. Now, Mercerasked, and the board agreed to reject the only project bid submitted and wait about five years for a full renovation of the facility, as outlined in the facility’s master plan.

That’s expected to cost about $12 million and come from the park district’s general fund.

There will be more discussion of the full Senior Center expansion when the board discusses an update to the district’s Capital Improvement Plan at a meeting next month.