It looks like a civic center will not be developed in De Soto, after all.
Back in 2020, the De Soto School District received a $25,250 grant from the Jefferson Foundation to pay the Rome Group of St. Louis to complete a study into the feasibility of building a civic center in the city.
There was interest in a civic center in the city, but the project is no longer in the works due to limited funding, City Manager Todd Melkus said.
Other parks projects continue to push forward, though. For example, De Soto officials are looking into developing a multi-purpose field near the De Soto Athletic Complex off Vineland School Road south of downtown. The possible addition of that field will be considered during discussions about the city’s next budget, which begins November 1, Melkus said in an email.
In March, the De Soto City Council agreed to fund the construction of an all-inclusive waterplay area near the athletic complex, Melkus said.
A $567,961 contract was awarded to Brookside Contracting of the De Soto area to build the waterplay area. City officials hope the project will be finished this summer.
Melkus said the city will pay for the facility with revenue from a 1/2-cent park and stormwater sales tax voters approved in 2018.
Two years ago a small committee including Melkus and De Soto School Superintendent Josh Isaacson had set up the civic center feasibility study and a survey to assess De Soto residents’ interest. The survey found residents were in favor of a civic center, and 70 percent of 721 respondents ranked an aquatic area as the most desired feature, followed by 30 percent who wanted a track/turf field.
Research determined the cost would be $16,997,500 to build the facilities along Vineland School Road, including a 19,000-square-foot aquatic center, a 200-meter track, batting cages, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) storm shelter, and various fitness and meeting spaces.
The committee aimed to raise half of that money through one or more donors. When the pandemic hit, however, finding funding became more complicated.
“The pandemic slowed a lot of things down,” said Jim Thomas, another committee member and longtime De Soto resident. Though committee members searched for funding on a national level, many larger foundations had changed their focus to COVID-related projects.
“A lot of this project was reliant on a number of large donors to come through to get the ball rolling,” Melkus said. “At this time we have to move forward with other projects because the taxpayers deserve to see progress from the park/stormwater tax that was passed a few years ago.”
Though the development of a civic center has hit a standstill, the input from De Soto residents showed there’s an interest in similar projects, according to the survey results.
So, city officials have looked at other ways to provide recreational opportunities for residents.
“As the pandemic winds down,” Thomas said, “people are looking for places to get out and spend time outside.”