Lindberg Park's Top-Ranked Upgrade Carries the Smallest New-Project Price in Its Plan

How much would it cost to give Lindberg Park the thing its survey respondents wanted most? The village's own estimate is $4,000. That is the price listed for upgrading and mapping the trails at the park on Park Street. In the current plan, that work doesn't come up until 2028, a full year after a $200,000 pickleball conversion.

On Tuesday, October 6, the Combined Locks Plan Commission meets to review what the public said about Lindberg Park and to start drafting future development phases. The adopted plan and the survey results describe two different orders of work for the same 16 acres. That meeting is the first real chance to line them up.

The half-mile loop at the top of the list

Lindberg Park is the village's oldest community park. It covers 16.28 acres at 415 Park Street, in the east-central part of Combined Locks. Its developed side has a tennis court lined for pickleball, a children's play area with a communication board, a grass volleyball court, and a covered picnic shelter with restrooms. Past those, the park opens into woods, ravines, and undeveloped land, with a 0.5-mile walking loop winding through it. Part of the property borders Don Fries Recreation Area and Memorial Park.

The loop is what the survey cared about most. The Oct. 6 Plan Commission agenda includes a ranking table built from 86 survey respondents. It sorts each amenity into a priority group based on statistical confidence, not just raw votes. Only three items made the top tier:

1. Walking trail, with 62 votes
2. Shelter and restrooms, with 56 votes
3. Playground equipment, with 45 votes

The table labels these three "Clear Priority." Security lighting came next at 38 votes, followed by pickleball courts at 30, a scenic overlook at 23, a picnic area at 22, and a mountain bike trail at 21. All of those fall in the "Solid Interest" group. Basketball, an amphitheater, and volleyball ended up at the bottom, and volleyball got a single vote.

The agenda packet explains the grouping in one line:

Amenities are grouped by how confident we can be in the ranking, not just raw vote count.

The same park, sorted by the adopted plan

The Village Board adopted the 2026–2030 Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan on December 9, 2025. Its Lindberg Park section has a proposed five-year action table, with all costs in 2025 dollars. The table below sets the survey ranking next to the closest matching line in that plan.

Read the plan by year and the pickleball conversion is the first large project, scheduled for 2027. The trail upgrade, the mountain bike trail, and a sand volleyball court are grouped together in 2028. The playground follows in 2029. Nothing is scheduled for Lindberg in 2030.

The table shows two gaps. The top-ranked item carries the smallest price of any new improvement in the Lindberg table, below everything except the 2026 shelter maintenance and the $0 bench phase-out, and it isn't scheduled first. Security lighting ranked fourth in the survey, but it has no line at all in the Lindberg action table.

The second-ranked item sits at the far end

The shelter is where the gap is widest. Shelter and restrooms ranked second, with 56 votes. In the plan, a new or remodeled pavilion is the largest single item at $750,000, and it's listed as long-term, beyond 2030.

For now, the plan's 2026 work at Lindberg is maintenance on the existing shelter. It lists $2,500 to replace the kitchen and bathroom exhaust fan and $1,000 for an epoxy-style coating on the restroom and kitchen floors. That is the park's whole $3,500 line for the year. So the building people ranked second gets upkeep in 2026, while its replacement waits behind every dated project in the plan.

The plan describes renovation at Lindberg as moving through four to five phases. Phase 1 reconfigured the parking lot to improve drainage and separate the play areas from car traffic. The completed-items list dates the new lot to 2025, the merry-go-round replacement to 2023, and the tennis court resurfacing to 2022. A tennis court resurfaced in 2022 is the same court the plan proposes to replace with two pickleball courts in 2027.

Two survey counts that don't match

Anyone following this in village paperwork will see two different numbers. The Plan Commission minutes in the September 1 Village Board packet say the Lindberg survey drew 64 responses. Those minutes name pickleball courts as the most-requested amenity, followed by playground updates, trail improvements and expansion, a new pavilion with restrooms, and keeping the park's natural, wooded character.

The ranking table in the Oct. 6 agenda is labeled 86 survey respondents and puts pickleball fifth. The posted documents don't explain the difference. The packet also has a second summary table with slightly higher totals: 66 for the walking trail, 58 for shelter and restrooms, and 47 for playground equipment. Both versions agree on the order at the top. The larger count is the more recent document, and it moves pickleball down while trails and the shelter move up.

Neither table appears to be a tally from the September 17 meeting itself. That evening, Plan Commission members met with the public at the Lindberg Park shelter from 5 to 7 p.m. for open discussion and "dot voting," where attendees put colored stickers on displays of possible amenities. The attendance summary counts 10 to 15 members of the public, both residents and nonresidents. Those sticker results are on the October 6 agenda for review.

Where the mountain bike trail fits in

The plan's $40,000 mountain bike line has a partner behind it. NEWT, short for North East Wisconsin Trails, is a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) founded in spring 2013. It supports multiuse trails designed for mountain biking across six northeastern Wisconsin counties. Its trail systems already include Woodland Prairie Park in Fox Crossing and Prairie Hill Park in Grand Chute.

NEWT members answered Plan Commission questions about a possible Lindberg trail on August 12, 2025. The commission voted unanimously to move the idea forward for more public input, which is not the same as approving construction. NEWT was invited to speak at the September 17 meeting about proposed mountain bike trails. The meeting summary doesn't record whether anyone from the group attended.

In the survey, the mountain bike trail got 21 votes, landing in the "Solid Interest" group. It sits in the same 2028 column as the $4,000 upgrade to the existing trails. That makes Lindberg's undeveloped area the main question for 2028. Should it get a mapped walking network, a single-track bike trail, or both? Further out, the plan's long-term list adds a $60,000 ravine and Garner's Creek overlook deck.

What Tuesday's meeting can change

None of this is locked in. The plan calls its project list a guide, and its cost table is in 2025 dollars. According to the village's research summary, the plan's proposed-project list is meant as a starting point for future discussion and budgeting, not a final or detailed plan. That flexibility is why the October 6 agenda matters. The Plan Commission will go through the September 17 results, discuss priorities, and draft future development phases for the park.

Here are the meeting details from the posted agenda and attendance summary:

• When: Tuesday, October 6, 2026, 5:15 p.m.
• Where: Combined Locks Civic Center Council Chambers, 405 Wallace Street
• On the agenda: the September 17 attendance summary, the public input results, priorities and draft phases, and scheduling the next meeting
• Accommodation requests: Clerk's Office, 920-788-7740 ext. 203

The agenda and the full survey table are posted on the village website. The 2026–2030 Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan has the Lindberg action table on its Chapter 7 pages.

Next door, smaller projects keep moving at Memorial Park. In August the Village Board approved a $5,190 electrical upgrade that adds a switch for each baseball field, with the Combined Locks Advancement Association covering half. The Memorial Park archery range is open during park hours, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Lindberg's bigger decisions start Tuesday night, beginning with which of the survey's three clear priorities gets a date.

Park plans like this one can change what living near a Combined Locks green space looks like over the next five years. If you'd like to talk through how projects on Lindberg Park's list might affect a home on or near Park Street, Kelly Davies Homes is glad to go through the village documents with you. Contact Us any time.