Is there a need for more campsites at Dower Lake?

Should there be a long term (monthlong) rental sites at the Dower Lake campground?

Do we need better softball facilities (four fields) at the park?

These and other questions might be considered at an upcoming planning meeting on the future of the popular Dower Lake Recreational Area.

Kevin Grondahl is looking forward to his May 17 meeting on Dower Lake. The session at the new Staples City Hall is a major step in the formation of a Dower Lake Recreational Area Facility Plan.

“It’s a sampling of information that we’ve gathered so far. It’s a snapshot of what Dower Lake could look like 15 years down the road,” Grondahl said last week in his office at the Staples Community Center. The head of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department has been working on developing this Dower Lake guide for the past several months, with the help of a Dower Lake Recreational Area Steering Committee.

He’s receiving help from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR) team. Funding for the U of M involvement was provided by a $15,000 grant from the U of M’s Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership. Grondahl wrote the grant application that was approved by the partnership’s board. The partnership office is located at the Central Lakes Ag Center in Staples with Linda Ulland as the executive director.

A three person team from the U of M conducted a site visit to the Dower Lake Park on April 21. In addition, Grondahl coordinated a survey of park users and local residents this past March. He also compiled a small stack of background information on the park which was presented to the CSBR team.

That team, which included two professors from the U of M’s School of Architecture and a graduate student, is now presenting a draft of their findings at the May 17 session.

Grondahl said he was impressed with the U of M team when they were in Staples. Graduate student Ashley Sommer, who is doing the majority of the writing of the plan, will be using this project in her master’s degree research project. She will be doing it in a hurry, as she begins her real job in early June with the U.S. Forest Service at Lake Tahoe, Calif.

She’s working under the supervision of Virajita Singh and Peter MacDonagh. Both are professional landscape architects who are also adjunct professors at the U of M. School of Architecture.

Singh’s bachelor’s degree is from Mumbai, India. while MacDonagh was trained at the National Botanic Gardens in Ireland. Both are heavily involved in sustainable design services and are considered as authorities on sustainable landscape architecture.

“Those questions and others like them are what brought us to develop a comprehensive plan for the park,” Grondahl said. With the city’s Park and Recreation Board, Grondahl has developed his own ideas for making Dower Lake more of a regionaluse park. He’s been working for some time on a system of trails that would connect the city’s parks, from Dower Lake to Pine Grove to the Living Legacy Gardens at the ag center. But first, they need to conclude their plan for just Dower Lake by this summer.

Grondahl notes that Dower Lake has a great deal of diversity in its offerings, including camping, both rustic and with electric hookups, softball fields, beach area, bath house picnic shelter and other features. “These are all elements that drew people to our location.”

“We have some aging infrastructure at the park, our buildings are of the 1960s and early ‘70s vintage. The clientele coming to the park are asking for more and better facilities. How do we accommodate that?” Grondahl asked.

He said a decision has to be made as to whether Dower Lake should be left in a strictly rustic, fairly primitive park setting or more developed. “Do we want to look like a state park or a KOA operation? That’s who we are competing with,” he said.

With many camp grounds switching to

strictly seasonal rentals, Grondahl said, “Dower Lake is getting to be fairly unique

with our weekend and one-day stays.” Now he is asking the public’s help in deciding what direction to go in the future.

The meeting at city hall will include a chance for attendees to review and comment on the plans from 5:30 to 7 p.m. followed by a program that begins at 7 p.m.

Members of the Dower Lake Recreational Area Steering group include Mayor Chris Etzler, City Administrator Nate Mathews, Jerel Nelsen, Grondahl, Community Services board members Mike Gedde and Ron Murray, Robb Peterson, Jeff Spandl, Tricia Jasmer, Anna Nice and Katie Williams.