Plans for Powell’s new splash pad are starting to take shape — and they look a bit froggy.

With the design about 60% complete, the Powell City Council got a sneak peek last week at the plans for the Homesteader Park splash pad. They include elements intended to be an homage to the old “Frog Pond” wading pool that the splash pad is replacing.

While the attraction won’t have the old pond’s iconic frog slide, the preliminary design includes a bullfrog-themed water archway, rotatable frog heads that gush a stream of water and cattail-like spires that spray water. Other features in the conceptual images from Civil Engineering Professionals, Inc. (CEPI) of Casper and Vortex Aquatic Structures International include a water cannon, a tower that dumps buckets of water and various fountains.

Council members endorsed the preliminary design at their Feb. 20 meeting, complimenting it as “cool” and “great.”

“There could be and probably will be more features,” City Administrator Zack Thorington said at the meeting, as one of the city’s messages has been, “we want as many toys as we possibly can.”

CEPI personnel “want to get us the best bang for the buck,” he said. Exactly how many features can be incorporated in the space alongside the Powell Aquatic Center will likely depend on how many benches, trees and shady areas are needed. The initial plans are based on $100,000 of the total $500,000 budget going toward water features.

“Obviously, some of this cost is the concrete,” Thorington said. “If you could have all  the toys, that would be ideal, but you have to have the pad, too.”

Preliminary design documents put the splash pad area at around 1,230 square feet, with another roughly 9 feet of concrete serving as a buffer around a circular play area.

Thorington said the footprint will be as big if not bigger than the frog pond, which was shuttered in 2017 and ripped out after falling into disrepair. The preliminary plans appear to put the Homesteader Park splash pad at less than half the size of Cody’s and in the neighborhood of Cowley’s.

If everything goes smoothly, there’s a chance the Powell project could be completed by the end of this summer, but CEPI previously predicted it won’t be finished until June 2025.

Half of the cost is being covered with a $250,000 grant from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, passed through Wyoming State Parks.