A new west-end park in Randall and Wheatland could cost nearly $6.3 million to build out fully, with development anticipated to take five to 10 years, according to new county estimates.

In the interest of making at least parts of the park usable for the public sooner, the county has prepared a draft plan to break the development into phases, with the first leg possibly creating full access to the land within the next three to five years.

“I think it’s the only way we can get our hands around it financially,” said Supervisor Dennis Elverman, chairman of the County Board’s Highway and Parks Committee.

The park — to be located on 234 acres of land on Highway KD, just north of Highway F — has been years in the making.

In 2001, the county purchased the former gravel pit land from Meyer Material Co., with the intent to develop a sports complex. But the planned baseball fields were later moved to Brighton Dale Park, and the park project remained dormant until recently.

A draft plan unveiled last year calls for installation of a trail system and elevated boardwalk, overlooks, three pavilions and a beach alongside the 39-acre lake that anchors the rugged property.

County Public Works Director Ray Arbet said nine separate development packages have been formulated to maximize construction efficiencies and to each add a visible, functional feature to the park.

A memorandum that Arbet presented to the Highway and Parks Committee Monday recommends starting the work with three of the packages, totaling an estimated $1.7 million.

Those phases include the park entrance, the trail system and boardwalk, a 40-by-60-foot picnic pavilion with restrooms, roads and parking lots and related utility installations.

Subsequent packages include the beach, a boat launch, an 8,400-square-foot main pavilion, a second picnic pavilion, shelters, landscaping and additional roads and parking lots.

Arbet said an application is pending for $682,000 in federal stimulus money for the entrance.

Whether the county receives those funds could be the Achilles heel, as it relates to starting work soon, Arbet said.

Arbet said the five-to-10-years-to-completion estimate hinges on the county’s ability to generate funding.

Preferably, Arbet said the project would prioritize federal stimulus and public-private partnership contributions ahead of county tax levy dollars.

“That would be my thought, knowing what I know at this point, on how I would go about developing it,” Arbet said.

Arbet said he could imagine partnerships with special-interest groups that would be likely to use the park, including scuba divers, mountain bikers and anglers.

He said he could also see area educational institutions and private companies such as We Energies having an interest in the alternative energy generation research possibilities on the properties. The land includes a small dam that feeds into the lake.

“If we look out and we do our work, there’s a potential,” Arbet said. “It’s not totally pie in the sky.”

Elverman, a longtime advocate for the park, is seeking volunteer labor to help get the project moving. He said his immediate hope is to make the property such that the public can begin using it in some way or another.

“It’s a little slow for me, but I understand the process,” Elverman said. “There’s just no way to speed it up.”