Mozingo planners question proposed location for lodge
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Maryville City Councilman Jeff Funston, left, and RDG architect Hans Klein-Hewett, center, wearing glasses, were among those looking over maps of Mozingo Lake Recreation Park Friday during a public comment session that was one of the first steps toward completion of a comprehensive plan for the lake scheduled for submission to the council later this summer.
By TONY BROWN
News Editor
Mozingo Lake Recreation Park Advisory Board members, city of Maryville officials and other local residents with a stake in the future of the 3,000-acre park, golf course and wildlife area gathered at the Mozingo Lake clubhouse Friday to weigh in with suggestions for a proposed comprehensive plan that would govern development at the park over the next 20 years.
Also present were staff from RDG Planning & Design, the consulting firm hired by the city to assist with drafting the development blueprint, which is scheduled for completion later this summer.
RDG is the same company that put together the city’s comprehensive growth, development and zoning plan, which was adopted in 2012.
The Maryville City Council appropriated $58,000 to pay for the Mozingo planning document, which to guide development at the lake. The reservoir serves as the city’s primary water source.
RDG landscape architect Hans Klein-Hewett said the last major planning effort at the lake took place as it was being completed in the mid-1990s. Many of the provisions in that earlier document, he said, such as the development of the 18-hole golf course, recreational vehicle camping areas, boat docks and other facilities, have been completed.
The council elected to move forward with a new round of planning following the failure of its effort to find a developer willing to build and manage a proposed hotel, banquet facility and meeting center at the lake.
Several council members have said being able to show potential developers that the city has a long-range vision for the park could help attract the kind of private-sector dollars that building and running such a facility will require.
And while RDG’s preliminary proposals deal with the park as a whole, the lodge is already shaping up as a centerpiece.
On Friday, Councilman Glenn Jonagan sharply disagreed with RDG’s plan to place the lodge somewhere on “The Point,” a hillside that rises above the eastern shore of the lake near the south end of the main channel.
Over the past year, The Point has become something of a special events venue. It also offers easy access to the park’s boating, camping and picnicking facilities.
However, the area is separated from the golf course by a large cove, meaning that golfers staying at a hotel there would have to drive out of the park then south for a few hundred yards on Liberty Road in order to tee up.
“I just think that it would be a disaster,” Jonagan said of plans that would site the hotel anywhere but in the vicinity of the current clubhouse.
“Golf is what they’re coming for,” Jonagan said of potential hotel guests.
Klein-Hewett said RDG picked The Point as a proposed hotel site because the hillside’s visibility would create a Mozingo landmark that could be exploited for marketing purposes, and because the lodge is envisioned as a “destination for the park and not just the golf course.”
Councilman Jeff Funston, who was also at Friday’s planning session, said he too favors locating the lodge near the golf course, if only because business gatherings, weddings, tournaments, reunions and other events that the hotel is expected to attract would cause too much traffic and congestion in the main part of the park.
He added, however, that the discussion may be moot, since anyone deciding to develop a hotel and meeting center at the lake will likely be investing several million dollars in the project. That means, Funston said, the lodge will likely go wherever the investors think they can make the most money.
It will be up to the council, Funston said, to balance the commercial interests of such a developer with the aesthetic and non-golf recreational aspects of the park.
“We need to suit all of Maryville,” Funston said, “not just one investor.”
Aside from the hotel, Hans Klein-Hewett said the biggest planning challenges at Mozingo revolve around its dual nature — a heavily developed south end and a relatively isolated northern section comprising open prairie, brushy timber and wildlife.
Reaching the north end of the park from the southeast side of the lake involves a drive over gravel roads that can take 30 or 40 minutes, and Hans Klein-Hewett said RDG is proposing development of a network of trails and old roadways to help improve access.
“Right now it’s almost like a number of small parks that are not exactly tied together,” he said.
