Bay Beach closer to breaking ground on waterfront project

Bay Beach Amusement Park is one step closer breaking ground on a new waterfront project.

This comes as the project receives the first of many grants toward the construction.

Back in 2009, the city created a Master Plan for construction at Bay Beach. Parks Director Dan Ditscheit says, "overwhelmingly," people were hoping for more access to the beach.

With that in mind, the new plan features a bathhouse, boardwalk and pier for the amusement park.

All that will cost upwards of $7 million.

The city has bonded $5 million, with the mayor pledging to fundraise another $1 million. That leaves $1 million to be collected by the Park Department, through grant money.

Wednesday night, the Parks Committee accepted the first $200,000 in grant money, donated by the Natural Resource Damage Assessment Fox River Cleanup.

“This is the first grant that was awarded, but we have several other grant applications that we have applied for, and we're waiting to hear from them,” Ditscheit says.

Next week, City Council will vote on whether the Parks Department should accept the money.

“Construction can begin as soon as the money is in hand. We do have an engineer on board, who is already working on the construction plans,” Ditscheit tells Action 2 News.

If all goes well, Ditscheit says construction should begin in 2019, with completion in 2020.