Inforum
By Ingrid Harbo
MOORHEAD — The kickoff to an $11.3 million project to renovate Moorhead’s Romkey Park was rained out, but Moorhead is still celebrating the final days of the Moorhead Municipal Pool and Romkey Park as it exists today.
As the pool closes for the summer, the Reimagine Romkey project to replace the pool and add new park amenities begins. Plans call for Moorhead’s only all-ages, public outdoor pool to be closed through 2025 and reopen in 2026.
The city planned to hold a groundbreaking event for community members on Thursday, Aug. 15, but canceled the event due to rain.
However, the community will still be able to celebrate the last day of the Moorhead Municipal Pool on Friday with free pool admission, a bouncy house, yard games and free food. Activities on Friday will start at 1 p.m. when the pool opens.
While the festivities on Thursday were canceled, local, state and federal leaders gathered at the Hjemkomst Center to mark the start of the project to revamp the park and pool.
Romkey Park opened in 1956, and the Moorhead Municipal Pool opened in 1958. It is the city’s only all-ages, outdoor public pool.
The pool hosts more than 400 swimming lessons each year and 250 swimmers each day, Mayor Shelly Carlson said.
“For many children, not just in this neighborhood, but in this entire city, Romkey Park is more than just a park — it's a haven,” Carlson said.
The city received a $5 million federal grant for the project from the Department of the Interior/National Park Service as part of the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership. Funding is intended to support recreational opportunities in communities that have historically been economically disadvantaged.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told The Forum seeing how the federal funding will be used in Moorhead is exciting.
“Here you can really see the stories of the kids that want to use the pool, the staff that have worked on this for so long and the idea that sometimes a park can make a whole area, a whole neighborhood, feel good about where they live,” Klobuchar said.
The grant program also required a local match of $5 million. Along with the required $5 million match, the city of Moorhead approved an additional $1.3 million for the project to ensure a highly requested splash pad could be included in the project.
Finalized park plans call for the swimming pool to have diving boards, a water slide and a wading pool. The splash pad will be outside pool fencing, free for people to use and open later into the summer than the swimming pool.
The surrounding park will include play features like a traditional playground, natural playground and sledding hill. There will also be a skate park, basketball courts, pickleball courts and soccer field.
Other planned amenities include a community room, picnic shelter, a food forest and new trails and sidewalks.
As rain fell outside the Hjemkomst Center, Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., made light of the weather in her remarks about the park.
“We’re all here because we believe that everybody deserves a delightful place for their families to get outside, to play and to make memories, and that is exactly what this park renovation is all about,” Smith said. “So today we are literally — although actually today we are figuratively — digging into an investment for the people of Moorhead, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
