From gravel mine to city park: Cascade Lake kicks off summer with a splash

One of Rochester’s longest-running improvement projects is about to hit a major construction milestone, as Cascade Lake Park finishes development of its playground and trail system almost fifteen years after the original master plan was developed. 

The summer of 2020 does not mark the end of construction around the lake, but does serve as a reminder of how far the area has come. Longtime Rochester residents may remember the area as nothing more than a gravel mine — now, tens of thousands of people use the park’s trail system annually.

“Parks don’t happen overnight,” said Mike Nigbur, head of parks and forestry for the City of Rochester. “Long-term planning has to happen to make sure it’s done well and done correctly. We want to get things done faster, but that’s not always the case — you gotta take the time and do it right.”

Cascade Lake will also become Rochester’s only public option for swimming come Friday, according to Nigbur. The beach and water will be open to the public through the park’s regular hours, without any mandated Covid-19 related restrictions (social distancing is still encouraged).

Nigbur says the decision to open the Cascade Lake beach to the public, while leaving all other public pools closed, simply came down to cost.

“We have to be cost-conscious with the pandemic, and pools are a deficit project,” said Nigbur. “We run at a deficit to operate those facilities. That’s with no capital projects going into it, too - for example, if you have a pump go out, that’s a big expense. So to be cost-conscious, we’re thinking of what we can provide the community with — a really affordable cost for entering and operations. This is the alternative.”

Nigbur also noted safety concerns as a main reason Foster Arend Beach, the city’s other public beach for swimming, will remain closed. While Foster Arend’s swimming area quickly drops off to deep water, Cascade’s swimming area gradually descends from the shore into roughly seven feet of water.

(Cascade Lake is not the only option for potential swimmers in the area, though — Olmsted County’s Chester Woods Park opened for swimming last Saturday, and various towns across the area are opening their public pools as well.)

‘Maintenance Mode’

As the city prepares to open the beach, it is also wrapping up a $4.5 million improvement project for the park, adding play equipment, a pavilion, and improving the parking lot and utilities underneath the facility. After finishing up the current project this summer, prepare for more changes as the 2020s roll on — Nigbur noted plans to build an amphitheater, fishing pier, and nature play area (among other things) in the next phase of the project, as well as a planned dredging of the lake after gravel mining ceases (no later than 2023).

Before any major construction begins, though, two things need to happen: the city must secure funding from the state (Nigbur is shooting for 2021, after Covid-19 sent the chances of receiving money in 2020 to near zero), and Parks and Recreation will go into ‘maintenance mode,’ to see what else park goers wish to have included in the space.

“We want to see how it plays out, see how people use the park,” said Nigbur. “The layouts we have — are they adequate, or do they need to change? If we see people cutting through an area, do we change it and create a little more connectivity? 

Nigbur expects park usage, already at 100,000 visitors per year, to increase dramatically in the next few years as more amenities are added to the park. In the interim, expect to see more public art and small additions in plant life around the playground and beach area.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.