Consultant helps Northfield council envision renovated, upgraded Riverside Lions Park

At its work session Tuesday night, the Northfield City Council was updated and provided feedback on the latest vision for the future of Riverside Lions Park presented by community development consultant Bruce Jacobson.

Jacobson said revitalizing the park in a way that offers a broad array of amenities to Northfield residents and visitors of all ages and interests is particularly important given its status as both a neighborhood community park and a regional draw.

Improvements to Riverside Lions Park are a key aspect of the city’s broader vision in the Riverfront Enhancement Action Plan, in which several other downtown parks along the Cannon River will be enhanced and connected in more effective ways with the shorefront.

Nestled between residential neighborhoods south of downtown and the river, the park’s unusual, elongated shape lends itself well to providing a wide diversity of experiences for appreciation and enjoyment simultaneously.

“Riverside, more than a lot of your other parks, is very linear and a very long kind of park, and it’s actually made up of a number of ‘rooms,’” Jacobson said. “If you really start to look at it that way, what we asked the working group as we worked through each of these spaces was, ‘What are we proposing to do in each of these rooms?’”

Based on community consultation, Jacobson quickly identified that much of the park’s key assets were working well. From the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial and Remembrance Garden to pickleball courts and appealing trails, much of the park won’t be touched by enhancements.

However, other key assets, such as the playground equipment and pavilion, are in need of upgrade to help the park broaden its appeal. Most crucially, Jacobson envisions that a reimagined park could make much better use of its prime waterfront site.

While the park’s basic “structure” will remain similar, the park’s two primary entrances at 7th Street and 8th and Poplar Streets could see significant upgrades, allowing them to better serve their role as key community gathering spaces for the adjacent neighborhoods.

At 8th and Poplar, which is not adjacent to the river but sits along Highway 3 and the future Mill Towns Trail, upgrades could be made to the playground equipment and the pavilion, with more accessible bathrooms and extra memorial trees added, plus an inviting picnic ground.

At the 7th Street entrance, visitors would enter a space built around the riverfront much more than it is currently. The play space would be “nature based,” with shoreline restoration, habitat enhancement and swinging benches to take greater advantage of the riverfront.

Additional shade structures could be added to the riverfront portion of the park to broaden the park’s appeal under diverse weather conditions. In the future, the park could even provide direct river access for boaters and kayakers, though that portion of the plans is less certain.

To make the park more user friendly and for a bit of beauty, benches and lighting could be added, some of it integrated with subtle art installations. Jacobson assured the council that the city’s new logo and branding could easily be integrated into key design elements.

The “master plan,” which emerged from the working group is likely to return to the council March 12, after a pair of meetings in which the working group and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board will consider feedback and move forward with a final plan.

Councilor Kathleen Holmes, who also serves on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, emphasized that the site’s visibility along Highway 3 provides an opportunity for the city to draw in visitors and make a strong first impression with an appealing design.

Mayor Rhonda Pownell also expressed a preference for prioritizing work along the portion of the park in front of Highway 3, as she argued that the facilities are in worse condition than other parks set to see upgrades in the next few years.

However, Holmes and Councilor Jessica Peterson White expressed a preference for prioritizing the riverfront portion of the park, adjacent to 7th Street, noting that the play structure in that area is extremely popular, in part because the site offers more natural shade.

“I think there’s a differential in usage (between the two playgrounds) that is not likely to change even with updates unless we change the shade situation,” Peterson White said. “I do not mean to imply that the (8th and Poplar) end of the park doesn’t need attention as soon as we can get it — I think the pavilion is certainly much in need of replacement — but that one play structure would not be at the top of my ranking as far as urgency.”