The state has announced another phase in the development of the Honey Creek State Park at Rathbun Lake that is designed to make it more attractive year round. Iowa Department of Natural Resources, spokesman, Kevin Baskins, says Bentley Management Group of Milwaukee, Wisconsin will spend $90-million on the development.
Baskins says it will be a lot of “vacation type” amenities that will “greatly enhance” the resort area as over the next five years they will develop condominiums and rental cabins, to shopping and amusement areas, such as a sports complex. Honey Creek is touted as the state’s first every “destination park,” and Baskins says this 160-acre development enhances what’s already been done.
Baskins says many of the amenities at Honey Creek are outdoor oriented and the new development gives people options for indoors, such as batting cages, if they get to the resort and the weather turns bad. Baskins says the project will help the state by bringing more people to the resort, and it will also help the economy in south-central Iowa.
Baskins says the project will create more jobs and an additional tax base once it’s fully developed of an estimated two million dollars a year. The development is expected to begin this summer and will take five years to complete.