Work is underway on the north side of Manning and the landscape already looks a lot different with the removal of the old mill in the location which will become Milwaukee Trestle Park. In October of 2014, the City of Manning began development of a master plan for the new park that was based on recommendations from Iowa State University. City Manager, Dawn Rohe said they also relied on community input for what the residents would like to see for improvements.
The results became part one of the five pieces of their Great Places applications for funding, which was successful and started the clock running on the project. They are now under a deadline to have this done by the end of 2017. In the meantime, the historic commission was approached by West Central Cooperative (Landus) on whether or not they would be interested in the gift of the land where the former Manning Ag building sat after they removed the old buildings.
All of this has put the project about a year and half behind schedule according to Rohe.
With the buildings removed, the city has scheduled concrete grinding to use the leftover building materials for any places they would put crushed rocks. At the same time, an engineer is doing topographical work in conjunction with a dirt mover to manage water movement and the community visioning project is underway and will provide input on the park. Rohe said Manning Main Street has become involved to help with funding and provided a board member to serve on the project.
