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.

The 50-acre site on a portion of the old South Golf Course -- twice the size of the Big Lake development -- will serve as the future home of the annual Voodoo Festival and, park officials hope, other music and cultural events.

The $4 million project will also feature four soccer fields, a one-mile perimeter path for joggers and bikers that will tie in with Big Lake's walking trail, and a shelter that will be used to host events such as large family reunions and company picnics.

The improvements are being paid for with federal disaster recovery Community Development Block Grants being funneled through City Hall. The contractor, Cobalt Construction of Slidell, plans to finish the work in about a year.

Although the tract will not have permanent stages, it will be equipped with electrical wiring to make it easier for festivals to set up quickly.

When it is not being rented for an event, the area will serve as green space.

"For most of the year it will be a wonderful, huge extension of the Big Lake area,'' said John Hopper, the park's chief development officer. "Instead of a three-quarter-mile running path, visitors will have a mile and three quarters.''

Rather than grouping the soccer fields in one place, the layout proposed by Torre Design Consortium calls for them to be scattered about to limit the loss of existing live oaks and pine trees.

"An advantage we have building on an old golf course is there are well-defined and established fairways,'' Hopper said. "We won't have to tell people to come back in 50 years when the trees get big. The trees are already big.''

While park officials are not ruling out the possibility of staging next year's Voodoo Festival in the new location, it seems likely the move will wait until 2013. The park's lease with Voodoo promoters runs through 2019.

For the past several years, the Halloween weekend event has been held in the park's southwest quadrant, along both sides of Roosevelt Mall adjacent to Tad Gormley Stadium.

That location has forced the park to shut down most of its revenue producing attractions, including the stadium, the amusements area, Storyland and the Botanical Gardens.

Moving the festival will offer the park an option to keep some of its other venues open. Voodoo attracted more than 100,000 people during its three-day run this year.

Park administrators are optimistic that the festival grounds, which will have about three times the acreage now used by Voodoo promoters as well as an 18-foot-wide asphalt path, will allow them to attract a ran

Another drawing card will be a new 4,000-square-foot pavilion equipped with restrooms and powered by solar panels.

Other green features at the site include a 5,000-gallon, below-ground cistern for harvesting rainwater that will be used to irrigate trees and plants, and a bioswale, a drainage feature that removes silt and pollution from surface runoff water.

While plans call for a small children's playground to be built adjacent to the shelter, the park is still searching for the $75,000 or so needed to pay for it.

Hopper said the park's latest project will complement the array of post-Katrina improvements and renew a commitment to preserve and enhance existing green space.

"We see the Festival Grounds as Big Lake times two,'' he said. "And if you're enjoying what's there now -- and we know tens of thousands of people are each year -- this will just allow visitors to expand their spectrum of fun.''ge of new events, from more concerts to food festivals to theatrical performances.