The East Baton Rouge Parish parks and recreation system has rolled out its latest plans for proposed improvements and additions over the next decade — but one thing that will not be changing is the City-Brooks Community Park Golf Course.

Last year, an effort was launched asking BREC to transform the 100-acre, nine-hole golf course into a “central park” that can be more widely used by Baton Rouge residents. But BREC Superintendent Carolyn McKnight, who has been publicly making the rounds presenting the agency’s latest construction priorities, told The Advocate this week that she had no intention of changing the historic golf course into a less restrictive park space.

More than nine years after it was closed to the public, City Park’s championship golf course is on the cusp of rebirth. Familiar elements from the old Bayou Oaks East layout, including the existing oak tree canopy, will be retained, and a new self-sustaining irrigation system will bring dramatic cosmetic changes to the property while easing the burden on city drainage.

NEW ORLEANS —An amendment introduced on Tuesday at the State Capitol would effectively bar the relocation of the Zurich Classic PGA tournament to City Park as a condition for state funding of a new City Park golf course. It is not known who introduced the amendment to HB2, which came in the waning days of the 2014 legislative session, though the move clearly favors interests in Jefferson Parish, where the tournament is currently staged.

Brechtel Park Golf Course, once a popular destination for recreational golfers looking to play an inexpensive round, now is visited only by the city work crews who come by occasionally to cut the grass. The 115-acre course and driving range, which sits off Behr-man Highway in Algiers, has been in limbo since it closed in 2011. Hurricane Katrina had destroyed its irrigation system and the course became essentially unusable, so many golfers stopped coming.

Today, portions of the fence are overgrown with vines or fallen down, and golf clubs, bags and shoes litter the floor of the empty clubhouse.

After two efforts by the city to find someone prepared to redevelop Brechtel as an 18-hole course found no takers, it appears likely that the course will be reborn as something different. What that will be is uncertain.

Julia Bland’s office at the Louisiana Children’s Museum has all the hallmarks of a school principal’s office. The big wooden desk and accordion folders full of paperwork are offset by children’s artwork, exposed pipes painted bright green and orange, and the thump, thump, thump of toddlers tromping on the floor above.

Bland herself seems perfectly suited to the schoolhouselike setting. As she describes it, her mission as head of this particular museum is less that of curator and more that of educator. She lays stress on the work her 17-member staff does at schools around the city as part of grant-funded initiatives aimed at improving literacy and fighting childhood obesity, among other causes.

“We have a belief that all children are born full of potential,” Bland said. “And this is a way to help that potential be realized for some children who may not be able to make it here to this building.”

These days, though, another mission is taking up a lot of Bland’s time, and it has everything to do with the museum’s physical space, currently a three-story building in the Warehouse District but soon — if all the necessary funding comes through — a more expansive, open-air setting along the bayou in City Park.

The proposed site of City Splash, a water park contemplated under City Park’s master plan, has been changed to a more spacious location on Palm Drive under a plan approved last week by the park’s board.

The original plan called for putting the water attraction on the western edge of the park near Marconi Drive, between Dreyfous and Victory avenues. That changed because park officials decided the feature would need more space for parking and to accommodate a second phase, said Robert DeViney, the park’s chief operating officer.

The Palm Drive site, north of Roosevelt Mall and near the park’s administration building, is 8 acres, double that of the master plan’s original location.

It appears construction of the $24.5 million championship golf course at City Park could begin before the end of the year. City Park CEO Bob Becker said FEMA has green-lighted the project and the state is fairly confident it can be bid out at the end of August with construction starting possibly as early as November.

If the project begins then, the course would probably open in either the early part of 2015 or the latter part of the year, depending on when the grass can be planted for the growing season in 2014.

With the now-defunct Oaks at Sherwood golf course headed into the hands of a local lender and its fate unclear, other recent course closures point to a likely use involving some type of residential development.

As for the golf course’s last 175 members, at least one competitor, Livingston Parish’s Greystone Golf & Country Club, is actively targeting them for membership as owners there try to boost that course and its surrounding residential development.

The Oaks was shut down Wednesday, unable to overcome dwindling membership and competition from other courses. It closed owing about $2.7 million to American Gateway Bank. The bank’s CEO would not comment Wednesday on the fate of the property, but it is expected to be sold to developers.

Four other area courses have closed in recent years and set the pattern. Shenandoah Country Club Golf Course is now a residential development. A portion of Fairwood Country Club, off Millerville Road, was developed with houses and the rest is set to become an apartment and retail/office development. Briarwood Golf Club at Airline and Pecue is now the site of the new Woman’s Hospital. A residential development is planned for the former site of the Gonzales Country Club.

Generations of New Orleanians have fond memories of playing miniature golf at City Park.

On Friday, after decades of absence, the beloved sport made its return with the opening of City Putt, the latest project completed as part of the City Park 2018 Master Plan.

It’s little more than piles of mud and a steel frame, but in the coming weeks, the construction zone next to City Park’s Great Lawn will be its newest attraction: City Putt, a two-course, 36-hole mini golf facility. The new attraction is part of City Park 2018, the park’s $150 million master plan that has already has seen the creation of the Great Lawn, new tennis courts and festival grounds with more to come.

City Putt will cost $2 million and is being paid for through several sponsorships, said John Hopper, City Park’s chief development officer.

New Orleans — It’s little more than piles of mud and a steel frame, but in the coming weeks, the construction zone next to City Park’s Great Lawn will be its newest attraction: City Putt, a two-course, 36-hole mini golf facility.

The new attraction is part of City Park 2018, the park’s $150 million master plan that has already has seen the creation of the Great Lawn, new tennis courts and festival grounds with more to come. City Putt will cost $2 million and is being paid for through several sponsorships, said John Hopper, City Park’s chief development officer.

City Park's long-promised championship golf course complex took a major step to becoming reality Tuesday. The City Park Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a measure that has it partnering with the Bayou District Foundation to run the new complex and help pay for it.

There are a few more hurdles to cross with FEMA and the state as well as a management agreement to draw up with the Bayou District Foundation. But those aren’t considered major issues and construction on the new golf course could start as early as February. At that start date, completion would likely be in the fall of 2014. A later construction start could mean the course would open in the summer of 2015.

The Municipal Police Employees Retirement System lost nearly $860,000 last fiscal year as a result of its ownership of two northwest Louisiana golf courses.

The golf courses have been a continuing drain for years on the system, which has been relying more and more financially on increased contributions by local governments — the employer of police employee system members.

It's been nearly a year since City Park officials said anything publicly about their post-Katrina commitment to bring a championship golf complex to the storm-ravaged site of the old East and West courses. But City Park CEO Bob Becker is adamant that the ambitious project is alive and well. Becker said last week that the design phase for the facility is heading into the home stretch. His board of commissioners expects to solicit construction bids by the fall and award a contract and break ground by year's end.

"The good thing is it's in final design," Becker said. "That's a huge step forward, and we're on track to choose a contractor by mid-September."

Exactly what the course will look like, however, is still unclear.

The popular Big Lake at City Park is about to become an even bigger attraction. Construction is scheduled to begin next month on the adjacent Festival Grounds, which will stretch along Wisner Boulevard north of Christian Brothers School toward Interstate 610.