With Help From Twins Funds, Northside Park Making Progress

Construction at Rotary Northside Park is expected to continue through the summer, but residents can expect quite a different site come fall.

A major renovation project at the city park started in April and should be largely complete by November. When all is said and done, the two current baseball fields will be updated with new irrigation systems, bleachers, scoreboards and dugouts. A third field will also be added to the park, and the parking lot will be upgraded.

“Those fields were tired. They weren’t meeting people’s needs,” said park superintendent Rick Beane. “It was good timing.”

A third of the funds for the $1.2 million renovation are coming from . Beane said the project is “on track and on budget.”

The renovated fields should be seeded in August, Beane said. While the park won’t be ready to host ball games until the following spring, he said the playground should be open for use in November.

That’s welcome news to Mark Nevermann. The St. Louis Park resident lives a block away from the park, and said he and his young kids used to use it all the time. For the time being, that’s not a reality. Still, Nevermann said the temporary inconvenience will probably be worth it.

“I think ultimately it will be a good thing,” he said. “It looks like it’ll be very nice.”