FAYETTEVILLE — A year after the city annexed some 800 acres of a picturesque hillside on the slope of Mount Kessler, development of the large residential and commercial development SouthPass could still be years away.

Ultimately, if it's built, SouthPass will cover about 1,000 acres.

One of the first hurdles to cross is the transfer of roughly 200 acres to the city to be developed as a regional park. That hasn't happened yet.

"I don't know exactly when that will happen," said John Nock of Nock Investments and one of the leading investors in the project. "I was thinking it would have been done by now."

The deed transfer is still inching its way through legal channels between the city and developers, Nock said. The turnover of the land was part of an agreement struck during former Mayor Dan Coody's administration as part of its effort to develop a large recreational park through a public private partnership.

In the park contract with the city, the developers committed to giving Fayetteville $1 million to help develop the regional park, which will include soccer and other fields. Their residential and commercial development is slated for construction around the park.

The $1 million donation only comes when the first construction contracts have been awarded for the park project, according to contract documents.

The advancement of the park project and the related development has been far slower than envisioned, but people should not interpret that as a halt, Nock stressed.

"Things are much slower in today's economy, but it's moving along," Nock added. "I know there's a lot of people who don't think this will happen, but that's OK."

The city is setting aside $373,000 next year to go toward development of the regional park, said Paul Becker, Fayetteville's finance director. The first phase of the public development -- slated to begin in 2011 -- would include eight soccer fields, restrooms, a "great lawn" and other features. It's expected to cost about $6 million, according to Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Division documents.

Other aspects of the project, such as new sewer lines to serve the park and nearby areas, are also on hold, say officials. The sewer project is two-fold. One phase is to increase the sewer capacity to the location of the regional park. That project is expected to cost $178,230, said Dave Jurgens, Fayetteville's utilities director. Half of that cost was picked up by the developer.

"Most of the sewer line under this contract has been installed," Jurgens said.

"The second portion of the sewer involves extending sewer service from the existing sewer collection system to the SouthPass development," Jurgens explained. "No work has been done on this section."

SouthPass -- a concept begun in 2004 -- is a 1,000-acre mixed-use development planned for southwest Fayetteville. The project is planned for development over a 25-year period and would bring 4,300 homes and apartments. The SouthPass planned zoning district was approved by the Fayetteville City Council last year.

One of the conditions of the contract between the city and developers is that Fayetteville will get the closed 33-acre C&L Land Co. landfill on a hillside. The landfill was decommissioned in the mid-1970s, and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality officials have said it's in need of some of mitigation.

"There exists a potential for human health risk exposure from the seeps and groundwater from site wide contaminants," reads a June 1, 2009, ADEQ report. Since the landfill was closed by basically covering it with a foot of soil, a proper "cap" would need to be applied, the environmental report concluded.

"In order to construct a proper cover over the site, the trees will have to be removed," the report reads. The cost of remediation is estimated to be $1.7 million.

When SouthPass made its way through the public review process it generated a flurry opposition, mostly from environmentalists opposed to what they saw as over-development of the mountain.

"I didn't think it was a very good arrangement to start with," said Barbara Moorman, who lives near the site. "I still think it's a bad decision."

"I feel the city needs to keep some green space on the edge of the city," Moorman said on Friday. She's not surprised by the project's delay.

"The developers left themselves a lot of escape hatches," Moorman said, commenting on the language in the contract. "And they may have had a sense of what the economy was going to do."

Nock said SouthPass was never presented as a subdivision that would be quickly built.

"It will not happen over night," he added. "But it is moving along."

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