Eagan Advisory Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting – September 15, 2025
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Eagan Advisory Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting – September 15, 2025
The Advisory Parks and Recreation Commission of Eagan, Minnesota, met on Monday, September 15, 2025, at 6:00 PM at Moonshine Park. The meeting included presentations on the city's recreation facilities and the 2026–2030 Capital Improvement Program, along with staff updates and commissioner roundtable comments.
Consent Calendar
- The agenda was approved with a motion and second, all in favor.
- The minutes from the May 19, 2025 meeting were approved with a motion and second, all in favor.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No visitors were heard; the item was passed without comment.
Presentation: Facilities Division Overview
Mark Vaughan, Recreation Facilities Superintendent, provided an overview of three divisions:
- Civic Arena (Skate Eagan): Eagan Skate School is the second or third largest in Minnesota by registrations, with 430 registrations for the fall session. The program offers 24 trained instructors, an annual ice show (May 9–10, 2025) with 48 volunteers and skaters aged 3–53, and adult-only open skate sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays. New bumper car rentals (16 cars) saw 35 rentals in a single session. Adult hockey league participation is declining, with early morning ice rentals (6:30 AM) emerging as a trend. The facility is 30 years old (1995) and has seen carpet wear from high foot traffic.
- Cascade Bay (Cardio Bay): Employs 185 seasonal staff aged 15–20. Attendance in 2025 was down by about 1,400 visitors compared to 2024, partly due to 17 days of partial or full weather-related closures. Private rentals (Friday and Saturday nights) sold out, bringing an estimated 4,500 additional visitors. The pool is 26 years old (1999); a slide was refinished by a contractor from Ohio. Vaughan noted the need for new features and increased visibility, as the facility is located below road level.
- Government Buildings: A small crew maintains four fire stations, the police station, city hall, and the community center. Recent projects include a floor replacement at Fire Station 3 and elevator replacements at city hall/police station. Vaughan offered tours of all facilities.
Discussion Items
- Capital Improvement Program (CIP) 2026–2030: Parks Superintendent Chris Fleck presented the five-year plan, guided by the 2015 master plan and the upcoming new master plan (draft due October 2025). Key 2026 projects include:
- Northview tennis courts: Collaboration with ISD 196 (Eagan High School and Dakota Ridge Middle School). The city will fund design/engineering, landscaping (via tree mitigation fund), and lighting for up to eight courts (estimated city share $400,000 of total ~$2 million). The school district will pay for court construction.
- Quarry Park shelter building: Considered for replacement; staff may propose a bathroom building with shade structures instead of a full shelter, given the park's popularity for pickleball and other activities.
- Two playground replacements: Walnut Hill ($100,000) and Paradox Path ($60,000).
- A maintenance support building (location: Central Park).
- Small projects line item: $125,000.
- Public art: Heart of Eagan (art-on-loan program).
- Funding: Approximately $3–4 million in reserve from park development funds and park dedication fees. The CIP is financed through park dedication (new development only), tax-based park development funding, and grants.
- Commissioner Hassan raised concerns about the lack of a dedicated soccer complex, noting growing demand. Fleck responded that land availability and cost (e.g., a $50–70 million multi-sport facility) are significant challenges, and that soccer demand was not a dominant theme in the recent master plan survey. He acknowledged the need but stated current resources are insufficient.
Staff Reports
Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation Jared Flewellen provided updates:
- Market Fest shifted to Goat Hill Pavilion for the end of the season (through October 8, 2025) due to extended daylight under the new pavilion lights.
- Eagan Community Center (ECC) renovation continues; phase 2 (lobby, bathrooms, fitness spaces) is underway, with elevators being installed. Completion expected fall 2026.
- The Art House had its grand opening on September 13, 2025, as part of Art Block. Public invited to tour and sign up for classes.
- Goat Hill ice rink target opening: around Thanksgiving week 2025, with chiller activation around Veterans Day.
- Teen programming has expanded under Recreation Programmer Connie Hur.
- A Communities for All grant (approximately $36,000) from Dakota County will fund an adult-size changing table at Northview, sensory materials, wheelchairs, and ADA swings at playgrounds.
Round Table
- Commissioner Hassan announced the Oromo Thanksgiving celebration at Lake Nokomis on the upcoming weekend and invited commissioners.
- Commissioner Sultrome noted the high quality of Eagan's parks and encouraged visiting lesser-known parks.
- Another commissioner expressed appreciation for the facilities and the overnight staff who maintain them.
- Commissioner echoed support for Eagan Art Block and the Art House, noting the park behind it is popular with teens.
Key Outcomes
- The agenda and minutes were approved unanimously.
- No formal votes were taken on the CIP or other items; the CIP will be presented to the city council for approval at the joint meeting on Tuesday, October 14, 2025, at 5:30 PM. The new park master plan draft will also be presented at that meeting.
- The commission will not hold a regular October meeting; instead, members will attend the joint council meeting.
Meeting Transcript
Mm-hmm. Hello, all welcome to the Egan Advisory Park and Recreation Commission meeting of Monday, September 15th. Let's all stand now for the Pledge of Weekends. Do I have any discussion or a motion? No new items. All right. Um, do I have to motion to approve? Second. Second. All those in favor? I think you're next. The approval of the minutes. I think those were sent out in your packet. Are there any updates? Questions. All right, a second. All right. Um, let's all vote. All right. So next on our agenda, visitors to be heard. Seeing none, I think we'll move right on to our presentation. Um, would you like to introduce the chair? Mr. Vaughn. Um, as as we uh continue kind of working through the different divisions of the department. Uh, tonight we have uh in front of you uh Mark Vaughn, our recreation facilities superintendent. Um I know different teams have taken different approaches when they bring the presentations to you, and sometimes you'll see more faces and then other teams. But tonight, uh, Mark is here to go over all things recreational facilities and and maybe are you touching on government buildings in a little bit at the end. He oversees uh uh a lot of our big operations with regards to Cascade Bay, Civic Arena, and then also all the buildings that house the police department, the fire department, city hall here. So Mark is uh Mark is a busy guy, so hand it off to you, Mark. I'm gonna have you display that in. Give it just a second here, and I'll pop up for you. There we go. Chair members of the commission, thanks again for giving me a chance to uh come give you a quick snapshot of our division. Um Andrew talked about it. There's three different areas that we uh take care of. First is the Civic Arena. We'll talk about Cascade Bay, and at the end we'll talk a little bit about government buildings. It's okay, Chair. I think I'll pause after each facility or each area, and then we can stand for any questions, or we can just wait till the end from there. We're gonna start with the Civic Green, and we're gonna start with this tagline of uh skate Egan. Give staff credit like that. They wanted this tagline to go that any skating that we do at the Civic Arena is gonna fall under this umbrella of skateing. Um, it's something we implemented that's really going really well because all these different layers of skating fall under this umbrella of skating, and so give staff credit for coming up with this tagline. The biggest part of the skate eagon that we run program wise is our Egan Skate School. Tonight's the first night of our fall session is just starting, first night, so it's busy over there. Um last year we were, I think the second or third largest skate school in the state of Minnesota. Um, it's all done to the U.S. figure skating, um, and they do it off the number of registrations. You can see there are numbers that we have, a number of registrations that come through in the winter, spring, summer, just like everywhere in Minnesota, less people are using that sport.
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