Red Wing Park remains closed for a roadway improvement project.

“The entry road has only one access coming into the park from General Booth Boulevard and as you come into the park there is a really narrow roadway,” Red Wing Park project manager Jason Baines said. “We wanted to widen the road to allow two cars to pass.”

The park took a temporary close beginning on Oct. 3, 2024, to allocate time for improvements, and expects to reopen in early 2025.

“As part of the project we were also doing some stormwater [and] drainage improvements,” Baines said.

The funding for this project comes from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) fund, a program resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This program helped to mitigate the economic fallouts of COVID-19.

“We go through and identify a variety of needs that need to happen within all of our parks and we prioritize all those parks,” Baines said. “The city council comes up with a budget and we are told how much funding we are going to get and we have to perform projects based on that funding.”

The grant from the ARPA enables Parks and Recreation to pursue various projects like this that may have held lower priority. The project is being done by on-call contractors certified by the city to perform specified on-call construction. 

“Out at Red Wing, the road widening project that is underway right now is about a $700,000 project,” Baines said. “We have another separate, but related project with a different contractor. [This will cost] $500,000 in milling and repaving the park entry road and the parking lots.”

The park’s closing presents a problem for some students involved in athletics and other extracurricular activities.

“I cannot practice tennis anymore with my friends and family because [Red Wing] Park is closed,” freshman Lily Gerlach said.

According to Barnes, the park closure’s scheduled to last through the middle of February.

“If we get a big snowstorm, that is going to push the schedule back. All we can do is forecast it the best we can,” Barnes said.