Bellarmine seeks ball fields at Creason Park

Faced with losing six acres it owns north of Joe Creason Park for an MSD project, Bellarmine University is negotiating with city officials to use five-plus acres the school partly owns to put in new ball fields at Joe Creason Park near the Louisville Zoo.

Word of talks between Bellarmine and the city about the targeted land — a flat area with a walking path across Newburg Road from Bellarmine — has prompted speculation that the city might give or sell park land to the university.

But city officials insist that's not the case — that it only would consider some sort of shared-use arrangement, as it has at other parks where groups are allowed to rent or use park facilities or make improvements to park land under various setups.

In the case of Joe Creason, "we're not giving away or selling" park land, said Chris Poynter, a spokesman for Mayor Greg Fischer. He and other city representatives discussed talks with Bellarmine at Metro Parks headquarters in Joe Creason, following a Courier-Journal open records request for information about the matter.

City officials said the situation with Bellarmine is somewhat different because — although it's not widely known — the university already owns about half of the acreage needed for the fields. That's because land is part of 14 acres it owns next to the park, commonly thought to be park land.

Bellarmine allows part of the 14 acres to be used as public parkland, and a portion is leased to the Kentucky Nature Preserves Commission for part of a nature preserve in the area.

Alan Rubin, president of the Belknap Neighborhood Association, said he doesn't object to the concept of using the park land for a parks-type purpose, such as ball fields.

But "we want to make sure we don't give a big chunk of city land to a private entity," he said recently, after he and other association board members talked with Metro Councilman Tom Owen about the park in January.

"Not trying to take over the park"

Bellarmine doesn't have enough space to put in formal fields on the land it owns and would need to come into part of the parks property, said Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, chief of the city's Louisville Forward economic and community development effort.

"We'd like to know what people think," she said. "Would the public enjoy having formal fields there?"

From Bellarmine's standpoint, "we're not trying to take over the park," spokesman Jason Cissell said. "MSD triggered the whole discussion."

Cissell would not say directly what Bellarmine has in mind at the park or discuss the specifics of negotiations with MSD, which needs Bellarmine land at the end of Nightingale Road off Poplar Level Road.

But Cissell confirmed the discussions about the ball-field plans. "There's nothing that they've said that's wrong," he said. "Owning property on both sides of Newburg Road, we've certainly had internal discussions about what could go where," but they're "fluid discussions."

"We're certainly interested in more recreational opportunities for our students," he said. "We're considering some ideas, because MSD approached us and started a conversation about pieces of land that are important to us."

Metro Parks plans no action at this point, and no formal use arrangement has been signed, said Mike Heitz, Metro Parks director. But if talks with Bellarmine resume, a public meeting would be held and public input would be sought, he said.

Assistant parks director Marty Storch said Bellarmine's lacrosse and soccer teams already use the field area informally, and Bellarmine also is allowed to use its part of the flat area for overflow parking for its stadium across Newburg.

Some other groups also have made improvements or additions to the land they use, Storch said, citing work by Trinity High School in St. Matthews at ball fields it uses exclusively for a fee during the baseball season at Thurman Hutchins Park on River Road.

A model airplane club also has created a field it uses at McNeely Lake Park in southern Jefferson County, and different groups sign up to use the fields within the Seneca Park walking loop. He also cited 21st Century Park's work in improving and assembling public parkland and other land for parks in the Floyds Fork Area in eastern Louisville.

The 14 acres the Bellarmine owns stretches along the public Joe Creason park land in a straight swath from a gated, brick entrance way with columns at Newburg up to the parking lot for the parks headquarters in the old Collings Estate house, built by businessman Ben Collings in the 1940s.

Asked about what Bellarmine's master plan shows on the 14 acres, Cissell said "we have some concept for how it might be used in the future" but would not elaborate. The MSD project "shuffles our thinking," he said.

Bellarmine purchased about half of the Collings Estate, about 68 acres, in 1965. But it sold the land to the city in 1966 for nearly $600,000 because of financial factors, both city and Bellarmine officials say.

The city used a federal HUD open space grant to make the purchase, and Poynter has said there are restrictions on how the park can be used under terms of the grant.

Shared use

Owen said he heard rumors last year about a possible transfer of land to Bellarmine and checked with Storch, Metro Councilman Jim King, now deceased, and other officials who told him "no way."

Whatever happens, Owen said he wants the flat area to remain available to the public. "I want shared use," he said.

He said he also doesn't want the recreation path cut off. "It's a very popular amenity," he said. "If it has to be relocated, that's perhaps acceptable."

The Bellarmine land that MSD needs is on a separate 17-acre tract with frontage on Newburg, near the 14 acres next to Joe Creason Park. It includes a former office building with parking that Bellarmine owns and land stretching back to Nightingale.

MSD chief engineer Steve Emly said recently that a contract has been let for the agency's $33 million construction project there to build an underground storage basin next to Beargrass Creek, to hold water temporarily. The goal is to keep the sewer system from overflowing, sending raw sewage into the creek.

The project is required as part of MSD's $850 million consent decree with the federal government, mandating improvements to improve and protect water quality.

MSD had hoped to start the project within 30 days, and negotiations with Bellarmine were expected to be resolved soon, he said. Cissell has since said that negotiations are continuing.

"They're a growing campus and don't want to give up land, without contingencies," Emly said, but left it to Bellarmine to say what the contingencies are. The land is wooded and is not used by Bellarmine, Emly said.

Carolyn Cromer, a former aide to Owen and an ecologist who lives on Princeton Drive near the park, said she wants to see Bellarmine succeed but that continued expansion — which has riled some residents in the past — makes her nervous.

"As someone who has used the park quite a bit, I would hate to see the city make any shared arrangements with Bellarmine," Cromer said. The flat area is a green, open space that serves as a wildlife habitat and is conducive to quiet contemplation — "and that does not include walking right next to a ball game," she said.

The area also is in a flood plain, and the open land helps filter storm water that goes into the creek, she said. "Anything they did there would almost certainly decrease water quality in a watershed that already needs help. Green open space is undervalued."

Liz DeHart, a spokeswoman for the Olmsted Parks Conservancy, also based in Creason Park, agrees. "Any kind of park land that's already designated park land should not be sold off," she said. "We all need the green spaces."

Reporter Martha Elson can be reached at (502) 582-7061. Follow her on Twitter at @MarthaElson_cj.

Who was Joe Creason?

Joe Creason Park was named in 1975 for the well-known Kentucky journalist (1918-1974), who joined The Courier-Journal in 1941. Born in Benton, Ky., he graduated from University of Kentucky in 1940 and became editor of his hometown Benton Tribune-Democrat, before moving for a short time to the Murray Ledger and Times. Although he started at the Courier as a sports writer, he was soon moved to the Sunday magazine staff, where he worked until 1963 — except for 1944 to 1946 during service in the Navy. In 1963, he was given his own column, "Joe Creason's Kentucky" and set out exploring the state. Excerpts from columns by "Mr. Kentucky" were collected in the book Joe Creason's Kentucky (1972) and Crossroads and Coffee Trees (1975). He died of a heart attack while playing at the park, which had been known as Trevilian Park. — Sources: The Encyclopedia of Kentucky and Metro Parks