Air Park comes alive

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BY KENDRA WALTKE/Lincoln Journal Star

Air Park is what many in Lincoln call this place west of the airport.

The older homes here were built during the Cold War as base housing for the Lincoln Air Force Base.

They’ve been here since B-47s barreled overhead and 8,000 airmen reported next door. They stand as a unit west of Northwest 48th Street in the neighborhood that’s formally known as Arnold Heights.

But people still call the neighborhood Air Park, even though that name more accurately refers to the industrial park on the old base site.

The Air Park neighborhood once had a slightly worn reputation. It had many rental homes.

It was isolated from the city by a Bermuda triangle of major roads and the airport.

But now, its reputation as an affordable place to live and its spot as a transportation hub is bringing growth and, finally, amenities that residents requested decades ago.

Indicators of the growth:

-- Hundreds of new homes have sprung up in the past five years to the north and south, and hundreds more are planned.

-- A new development along the interstate at Northwest 48th Street will bring 70 acres of new houses and a 150-acre development including fast-food restaurants, businesses, hotels and employers.

-- Construction of a new Arnold Elementary School will begin this year. Plans include a small public library as part of the school project. 

-- A new Air Park West Recreation Center and public pool could be built near the new grade school someday. 

-- A new city park will be developed in the Ashley Heights housing subdivision. Restoration of Bowling Lake is under way.

And the neighborhood finally got a grocery store — an IGA in Ashley Heights that also incorporates a hardware store and Subway.

People living here still crave more services, however.

Cathy Paider’s family moved to Ashley Heights about two years ago.

The area has many children, she said, which is nice for her two kids, ages 1½ and 3½.

She wishes the neighborhood would get a library larger than the one that’s planned. She’d like a trail for walking with her kids.

She especially would like more restaurants. “We’re really used to driving now, and having to go into town to do things,” she said.

Kimber Hansen, 37, loves her home south of West Adams Street. But as an avid biker, she wants a way to ride into town more safely.

She also wants more options for buying gas. “The lines get long,” she said. Yet she likes the area.

“It’s become a really nice neighborhood,” she said.

History

There were two distinct eras of military activity at Air Park, and signs of the first are all but gone.

When World War II broke out, existing air fields were transformed into the Lincoln Army Air Field.

Within five months of its announcement in 1942, the place was brimming with barracks and bombers, as mechanics and flight crews trained for battle.

After the war, the grounds were used by the Air National Guard and a Naval Reserve unit. One area became known as Huskerville, so called for the University of Nebraska students who made it their home.

A little white chapel on Northwest 48th Street is all that remains from that time, said Ed Zimmer, city preservation officer.

The hangars and vast concrete spaces owe their presence to the Air Force and Strategic Air Command.

Aggressive Lincoln and Nebraska leadership brought a major base back to town in the 1950s.

The Lincoln Air Force Base was officially activated in 1954, bringing B-47s, KC-97 tankers and Nike missiles.

A thousand houses, duplexes and apartments were built to house the airmen and their families.

Arnold Elementary School was built in 1959. Pools, gyms, an officers club and more amenities were added, as was Bowling Lake, named for an airman killed in an accident.

There were quite a few crashes here, and several deaths.

“It was dangerous work, the readiness and practice flights,” Zimmer said. “It was a serious place.”

With 8,000 airmen serving there in 1962, the base was an economic engine for Lincoln.

And when the base deactivated in 1964, an alarmed city put together a plan.

The Lincoln Airport Authority bought most of the base itself, and turned it into an industrial park. Leases to businesses occupying airport-owned buildings bring millions of dollars in annual revenue — so much the airport doesn’t use its property taxing authority.

A 1969 article said West O Street business owners pledged their support of recreational facilities at Air Park West to a Lincoln Action Program representative.

An old gym became what’s now the city’s Air Park West Recreation Center. The main base pool is now the Arnold Heights pool.

The Lincoln Housing Authority bought the base housing in 1970, and the area was annexed in 1971.

“The concern was that if the feds sold them off unit by unit, the housing market would be flooded,” said Beverly Fleming, the authority’s planning and development director.

The housing authority sold half the homes in the next few years, but still rents out more than 500 units — some old and some newer — in Arnold Heights.

The rentals are modest ranch- style homes. Lincoln architect Selmer Solheim designed those just north of West Adams Street. The Clark Enersen firm designed those farther north — the ones with low roofs, picture windows and carports.

The residences are called Capehart homes, for the senator who secured their funding, Fleming said.

The housing authority opened the doors of the Carol M. Yoakum Family Resource Center in 1995. It includes a police substation.

The LHA also funded a study in 1999 that identified the needs of the neighborhood.

“We felt there was a real need for planning in that area,” Fleming said, and the city agreed.

“Many of its recommendations are now being developed.”

Housing

What planners call “a critical mass” of rooftops was necessary to bring services to the Air Park West area.

The old base housing is joined by newer homes now, split levels that are many residents’ first owned homes.

The Olympic Heights subdivision went in 30 years ago.

But most subdivisions were built in the past decade; construction is still going strong.

According to Steve Henrichsen of the city Planning Department, the past few houses are being built in the Ashley Heights subdivision, platted six years ago for 283 homes and 80 townhouses.

Construction is ongoing, too, at Cardinal Heights first and second additions, with room for more than 300 houses and townhomes along Northwest 56th Street.

View Pointe West is approved for 227 units. Hub Hall Heights could have 349 homes and possibly 200 apartments.

The newer neighborhoods are home to many young families, he said, and are similar in nature.

“There’s not a huge jump in lot size or square footage,” Henrichsen said of the subdivisions under way.

Education

The new Arnold Elementary will hold 792 students.

The 2006-07 enrollment at the present school was 611.

The new school will be big enough for four classrooms for each grade, said Dennis Van Horn, business manager for Lincoln Public Schools.

If the area outgrows the school, LPS would rather build another grade school than build one that’s too big.

Some residents are equally excited about the possibilities of the new middle school in the Fallbrook subdivision, said the housing authority’s Fleming.

Students in Air Park West must now travel 10 miles to Dawes Middle School in northeast Lincoln.

“What often happens is that people will move out of the area when their kids grow,” Fleming said.

But future sixth- through eighth-graders may be reassigned to the new Schoo Middle School planned in Fallbrook. Whether that happens will be decided this summer, Van Horn said.

Construction on the new Arnold Elementary will start this year at West Cuming and Northwest 48th. It would open in 2009.

Its plans include space for a library to be shared with the city.

The existing Arnold Heights branch library is in a converted duplex the city gets rent free from the housing authority.

The space is chopped up oddly, said Carol Connor, director of Lincoln City Libraries.

The new one will be roughly the same size, about 2,500 square feet, but it will be more functional.

“It will have similar services to the one that’s there,” Connor said.

Recreation

A small park in Ashley Heights will get a playground, half basketball court and picnic shelter.

The equipment will likely be installed next year, said Lynn Johnson, director of Lincoln Parks and Recreation.

The renovation of Bowling Lake will wrap up this fall. The project aims to improve fishing there by making the lake deeper and stabilizing its banks. A parking lot will be resurfaced and a new bridge will take people to the large island.

Other amenities will take longer.

The Air Park West Recreation Center and Arnold Heights Pool are on the base side of Northwest 48th, farther from the houses.

The pool is strong as a tanker, said Johnson of Parks and Rec, but it’s not very well located.

The city owns four acres next to where the new school and library will sit, and that’s where a new recreation center and pool could go someday, he said.

The grade school will be built so a rec center could be added to one side. A pool would go next door. All could share parking.

However, unlike the school, there is no timeline for when the rec center and pool could appear.

A trail is planned within the neighborhood, and a connecting route is planned to other city trails.

“It’s all contingent on funding,” Johnson said.

Air Park West Recreation Center offers before- and after-school programs, a day camp, a boxing gym, sports clinics and a youth leadership program. It hosts neighborhood events, such as Halloween parties.

Annual attendance went from 11,000 to 28,000 in the past four years, said center director Doug Kasparek.

The center’s revenue has quadrupled, Kasparek said. “We’re in a phase of growth.”

Streets

Someday, Northwest 48th Street will be four lanes, with a turning lane and medians. “It’s been identified as the backbone going north to south,” said David Cary, city transportation planner.

Streets in Air Park West that are now unpaved or paved but with ditches alongside are slated to become two-lane streets with curbs, gutters and sidewalks, he said.

But the road improvements are not identified in the next phase of funding, he said.

Only two paving projects are planned for the next year or two, said Thomas Shafer of Public Works.

West Adams from Northwest 48th to past Northwest 56th streets will likely be paved, with work starting next spring.

So could Northwest 56th Street from Partridge to West Adams.

Also, the city will extend roads to reach the new Arnold Elementary.

New development

In 2004, the Airport West Subarea Plan made recommendations for residential, commercial and industrial growth for the next 25 years.

The plan identified a new industrial park for Lincoln, Airport West Industrial Park.

That, and redevelopment on West O Street, could bring more jobs to the area.

So could a large project planned at Northwest 48th and Interstate 80.

It will have 150 acres of business and industrial space, plus room for fast food restaurants, a convenience store, hotel and small businesses.

Few places in Lincoln have the amenities of that location — the access to Interstate 80 and U.S. 6, nearby residential and new infrastructure, said Rob Otte of Ringneck Development, the group developing the site.

“Plus, it’s a side of Lincoln that’s kind of underserved.”

The developers hope to land a larger scale employer, Otte said. “The access is really logical for that kind of use,” Otte said.

In addition to the 150 acres Ringneck owns between Northwest 48th and 56th streets, the group has 70 acres north of Holdrege for housing.

The homes will have a little more space and larger lot sizes than those nearby, Otte said.

“We’re looking for families who want to stay in the area now that the new schools and services are there.”

Reach Kendra Waltke at (402) 473-7303 or kwaltke@journalstar.com.