Wichita plans to eventually create a 215-acre lake with a beach

Wichita will eventually be home to a 420-acre park with a lake that offers everything from a swim beach to scuba diving, and another park that will be one of the largest urban wetlands parks in the country.

These parks — Crystal Prairie Lake and Pracht Wetlands — are two of the three undeveloped park sites that are slated to get funding in the city’s 2016-2025 Capital Improvement Program. Though none of these parks will be entirely complete by 2025, construction will be underway at each location and some parts of each park may be open earlier.

Here’s what the city is planning for these parks:

▪ Pracht Wetlands Park could be under construction as early as this fall. The first phase of development will include work on park trails, visitor parking, a boardwalk system and observation areas to watch birds and wildlife. The second phase will include more boardwalks, observation areas and overlooks. The third and fourth phases of construction are awaiting funding, but will add an observation tower and complete a perimeter trail around the entire park.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article160456079.html