Retired Ames Mayor and businessman Ted Tedesco, who recently started his third five-year term on the Story County Conservation Board, is looking forward to this year’s opening of the Tedesco Environmental Learning Corridor in south Ames.

“This will be the first county park built in the city of Ames,” he noted, as he sat down this month at the Iowa State Research Park with County Conservation Director Mike Cox to talk about this one-of-a-kind project that bears his name.

The Tedesco Environmental Learning Corridor is a 37-acre park that will teach its visitors about the environment because as you walk along its trails, you will be invited through interpretive signage and lookout points to learn about and interact with the waterways and prairies that are part of it. Development of this park, estimated to cost $4.5 million, has been a three-phase project, which in the end, will be a place where visitors can not only enjoy being outdoors to walk, ride their bikes, walk their dogs or other animals (as long as they are on leashes), but also learn about conservation techniques, sustainable technologies, water quality and the overall environment.