A drainage issue is the latest holdup for a first phase of the long-planned Bradby Park.

Isle of Wight County Parks and Recreation Director Mike Frickanisce told county supervisors in April that the 52-acre Rushmere park on Isle of Wight’s drawing board since 2008 could see bids by this summer for a first phase that would include a parking lot, picnic shelter, playground, basketball court and a 1-mile walking trail.

Frickanisce told supervisors June 5 that a 2008 conditional use permit for Bradby Park, then known as Hardy Park, had required the county to “install a culvert under Woodmere Avenue at the intersection of Tylers Beach Road to carry additional runoff and prevent ponding.” 

The park entrance would be located off Woodmere Drive, roughly a half-mile from Tyler’s Beach, 1.7 miles from Fort Huger and just over a mile north of Route 10. The park is named for Henry H. Bradby, who represented the former Hardy District, now District 3, as a supervisor for many years and was the first African American to be elected to the board and to serve as its chairman.

“During very heavy rains it floods at that corner; this would take care of that,” Frickanisce said.

A culvert was added to the site plan at the time, but that plan was never approved, and a culvert was never built during the more than a decade the project was shelved for lack of funding.

The 2008 plan had envisioned a softball and multipurpose field where Phase 1 is now proposed. While the updated Phase 1 plan calls for much less open field space susceptible to runoff, “if in the future we are going to add soccer fields and splash pads and more picnic shelters or anything else that we had on the master plan, Phase 2 or 3, or anything else, this should probably be addressed now,” Frickanisce said.

The site plan for the latest Phase 1 concept had already been reviewed by the Virginia Department of Transportation, but because a culvert wasn’t included in that plan, “that may require a change order because that wasn’t part of the original scope of work,” Frickanise said. “That means that the site plan, which has already been submitted to VDOT, might have to go back to VDOT again because it’s in their right-of-way.”

Once all county and state agencies sign off on the site plan, the county can solicit construction bids.

A prior conceptual plan for the entire park had called for the construction of an indoor recreation center and community meeting room, gymnasium with fitness equipment, library, museum and an outdoor swimming pool, as well as multipurpose sports fields, a walking trail and an amphitheater. The county began the process of updating the plan in 2020 by surveying Rushmere residents on their preferences for amenities the park should offer.

Frickanisce, during a prior update in October, said the cost for the entire park was estimated at $16 million in 2008. The current cost estimate for Phase 1 is $1.5 million, he told supervisors in April.

Isle of Wight County’s 2024-25 budget and capital improvements plan includes just over $812,000 for the project, of which just under $90,000 is intended to fund the project’s pre-construction engineering phase.

County Administrator Randy Keaton said in April that in the event the remaining cost for Bradby Park’s first phase is not approved for federal funding, he’d included funding for the remaining Phase I cost in the $1.1 million allocated for Parks and Recreation in the county’s 2025-26 capital improvements plan. County supervisors approved the plan and the county’s $113 million 2025-26 budget on May 15. Frickanisce said in April he’d also submitted a request to U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., for congressionally directed community project funding for the federal 2026 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.