Investigation finds Rock Chalk Park trails fall short of promise

Lawrence residents were promised a trail network at Rock Chalk Park that appears to be almost 2 miles longer on paper than it is on the ground. A May 22 investigation found the northwest Lawrence complex’s built trails fall significantly short of what was laid out in the 2013 development agreement, turning a park amenity into a question of accountability, oversight and public value.

The gap matters because Rock Chalk Park was not a minor private project. Lawrence city commissioners approved the development agreement on March 5, 2013, then signed off on a revised version dated July 10, 2013, as part of a public-private package that included a 100% property tax abatement for 10 years on the KU facility portion and up to $40 million in industrial revenue bonds. The original planning also discussed a 10-kilometer concrete trail around the park and nearby area, a standard that makes the missing mileage harder to dismiss as a small design change.

Today, the city says it maintains more than 4 miles of trails at Rock Chalk Park, including almost a mile of concrete trail and more than 3 miles of gravel trails. But that total still appears to trail what the agreement contemplated, leaving residents to ask whether the promised trail system was reduced, shifted or never fully built. Sports Pavilion Lawrence opened on Oct. 5, 2014, and the complex remains a heavily used recreation destination for walkers, runners and cyclists who rely on those paths to connect different parts of the site.

The trail question is part of a broader pattern at Rock Chalk Park. A separate May 8 investigation found Kansas Athletics Inc. is supposed to maintain the trails while the city is supposed to pay half the costs, yet Lawrence has been paying all of them for years. City officials estimated each maintenance event likely costs between $400 and $900, meaning that if the work happened twice a year for roughly 10 years, unreimbursed city spending could total about $8,000 to $18,000.

That combination of missing buildout and uneven upkeep puts renewed pressure on the original deal and the agencies that signed it. Rock Chalk Park sits at the intersection of city recreation, university interests and private development, and the unresolved trail count is now a test of whether Lawrence taxpayers got what they were told they were paying for.