City of Chesterfield

Parks, Recreation & Arts Master Plan

The City of Chesterfield Parks, Recreation and Arts Department underwent a comprehensive planning process from spring 2018 to summer 2019, with the goal of developing a document that would inform and guide decision-making relative to the department’s oversight of parks, facilities, programming and events into the next decade and beyond. PROS Consulting was contracted to perform the study on the City’s behalf. The process was multi-pronged, including detailed assessments of the parks and existing facilities, department programming and procedures, benchmarking comparisons with other communities, analysis of Chesterfield’s demographics, consideration of national trends, and extensive community engagement to gather feedback directly from residents and community stakeholders relative to needs and opportunities for improvement.

This Master Plan provides a system-wide approach to managing and operating the over 540 acres of parkland and more than 16 miles of publicly-accessible trails while taking into account the context provided in the previous section as a framework. This plan also establishes recommendations for the City of Chesterfield to achieve the vision the community has for the park and recreation system as well as to achieve greater sustainability without sacrificing the value of park assets, amenities, and open space or reducing the level of experiences and services available to users. Additionally, this Master Plan strived to strengthen the existing inventory of parkland, trails, signature facilities and amenities.

The final plan provided prioritized recommendations for parks and facilities, park land acquisition, trail connectivity throughout the City, staffing requirements, and funding needs. Major recommendations centered around five major sections: parkland, facilities, programming, operations, and finance.

See the Full Master Plan