DE PERE — Some changes are coming to the Nelson Family Pavilion at Voyageur Park this summer, thanks to a $50,000 Brown County tourism grant that Definitely De Pere secured for the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Forestry.
The money is to go toward improvements to the pavilion.
One of the amenities: installing fiber internet at the pavilion.
“Fiber allows us to be internet- and Wi-Fi-friendly, run more surveillance cameras and the whole nine yards and do all kinds of cool things,” Director of Parks, Recreation, and Forestry Director Marty Kosobucki said.
In addition, the pavilion will be getting eight to 10 sound-absorbing acoustic panels for inside the pavilion.
“If you’ve been in there, it’s … great, but pretty echoey,” Kosobucki said. “That’s going to help make it a little more full-sound, versus echoing in people’s ears.”
The department is also contracting to have a set of stairs installed that will lead down to the lower bowl level, as well as having aluminum railings constructed that can be moved if necessary.
“If we want to make the railings portable, it does not take a forklift to do it,” Kosobucki said.
The railings that are being replaced will be used to enclose the patio “even more than what it is right now,” Kosobucki said. “We think that is a pretty good thing.”
The grant took a year of applying and waiting, according to Kosobucki.
Municipalities were not eligible to apply for the grant, which is why Definitely De Pere interceded.
“We have a signed agreement with Definitely De Pere; they’ve already received the check, so it’s a matter of doing the work so the check can be forwarded to us from Definitely De Pere,” Kosobucki said.
The $1.8 million Nelson Family Pavilion opened in July of 2024.
The David and Rita Nelson Family Foundation donated more than $750,000 toward the project.
The pavilion is the site for the weekly summer Beer Garden concerts.
Its interior space can accommodate 250 people for private gatherings, and its exterior patio is designed so that it can be the stage for performers, with seating for the audience in the natural grass bowl below.
The Brown County Board of Supervisors set up the Brown County Tourism Enhancement Capital Grant program in 2023 for attractions that better the local area.
The Brown County Planning and Land Services Department administers the grant program, with monies from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act.
This year, attendees to Beer Garden concerts have a chance to buy commemorative 20-ounce beverage cups that they can reuse and get limitless 20-ounce refills for the 16-ounce price.
The catch is that there’s just 125 of them.
In other business, the board approved revisions to the masterplan for Southwest Park.
Changes include adding a small disc golf area north of the park’s Gandrud Field; an access trail from the Mystic Creek subdivision, a new subdivision west of Southwest Park along French Road, into the park; a pickle ball court; a basketball court; and an auxiliary parking lot.
The extra parking lot will be south of the main parking lot and will serve the pickle ball court and basketball court as well as the practice soccer area.
The park board also approved a bid for $57,460 from Bluemel’s Garden & Landscape Center of Greenfield to resurface the playground at Rainbow Park.
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