Timnath council backs Artisan Village site as preferred location for community recreation center

Timnath Town Council reached consensus March 25 to pursue the Artisan Village (Old Town) parcel as the preferred site for a proposed Community Recreation Center, after hearing a site-evaluation presentation and community input.

The decision followed a staff and consultant review of four candidate properties — the Timnath North Ranch ("Peanut") park site, the Artisan Village parcel (Old Town), the Fuel property, and another privately owned parcel — using a site-evaluation matrix that weighed site features, infrastructure, estimated development costs and community-planning issues. Consultants and staff discussed trade-offs including acreage, utility access, stormwater, parking and the town’s purchase-agreement obligations for the Artisan parcel.

Council members and staff emphasized that both finalist sites could accommodate the conceptual recreation center program but carry different futures for the surrounding area. The 25-acre Peanut site (town-owned and adjacent to Bethke Elementary) offers room for growth and multi-use athletic fields but would require reconfiguring on-site drainage for a recreation facility and — council members warned — could be costly to develop to a comparable level. The Artisan Village parcel (roughly 17 acres, with about four acres tied to a civic-use requirement in the town’s purchase agreement) is “shovel ready,” in the presenters’ words, and was described by several council members and stakeholders as more likely to catalyze investment in Old Town and produce property and sales tax revenue.

Consultant Kevin Armstrong and town staff presented conceptual footprints and test fits showing the same building program on either site (roughly a 110,000-square-foot facility with multisport courts, pools, community rooms and fitness space and an estimated parking demand in the 350-stall range). Staff noted the Artisan parcel’s split zoning (business to the north, residential mixed-use to the south) and the need to work with Timnath Landing stakeholders to satisfy purchase-agreement and vision-document commitments if the downtown site is used for the center.

Public commenters who had signed up for the regular meeting publicly endorsed the council’s choice during the meeting’s public-comment period. Gary Spurrier of Guide Our Growth said the group was “endorsing what the council has decided to do,” citing the center’s potential to strengthen Old Town by bringing more visitors to Main Street. Matt Wasserman, board member and treasurer of Together for Timnath, and Wade Fickler, speaking as a proponent of Old Town investment, also urged the council to move forward with the Artisan Village location. Resident Dennis Dakota said Trailside neighbors would welcome a downtown-located facility they could walk to.

Council members discussed sequencing and next steps, and staff said they will refine cost and access analyses, identify necessary approvals (for example, a conditional-use process if a recreation center is sited on land with residential zoning), and return with more detailed implementation steps for council consideration. Mayor Pro Tem Luke Wagner and others stressed that funding mechanisms and capital planning would need to be coordinated with future budgets so the larger community park and other neighborhood expectations are addressed regardless of final site selection.

Notes and next steps: staff will (1) return with details on the Artisan parcel’s purchase-agreement obligations and any required Timnath Landing approvals, (2) refine traffic, drainage and parking studies for the chosen site, and (3) incorporate the recreation-center program into the town’s capital-improvement planning process for budgeting and any potential ballot measure or bond timing.

The council’s articulation of a preferred site at the March 25 work session constituted a consensus decision rather than a recorded roll-call adoption of a formal ordinance or resolution; no final land transaction or binding vote on funding was taken that evening.