That's disappointing for a bridge that is ~75% done in mid march of 2023. I know there are lots of details for the landing and the white water course to complete, but they can't even shoot for this fall? Every part of the Gathering Place is super nice, but I always have felt that it's just a bit overkill in execution for what they are really doing. Like they could have spent $100 million less and we probably would have hardly noticed. At the end of the day we just want a nice park and a nice bridge. Some of the ammenities are worth going all out on such as the lodge building, playground and the water course, but would anyone have noticed if some of the random painstakingly developed landscaped areas weren't there? Just my thoughts. I worry they are going to spend another year and millions extra on a fancy plaza that just needs to be a nice plaza.
Most of what drove up the cost of Gathering Place was buying mature trees. Most of what they did do overkill in terms of the other plantings, etc. isn't as expensive as you'd think. The Riverside tunnels and things like that were very expensive as well. The grasses, shrubs, flowers, etc. you're spending less than $20-50 a plant. The mature trees can easily be well over $25-50k a tree or more, not including transit and replanting costs.
Mature trees do make a huge difference, just look at Scissortail in OKC. It will take 10 years for that park to have any decent amount of shade. Those size of trees run more in the $1-2k a tree
