Lakeville parks and recreation director outlines construction timelines, attendance and program updates

Parks and Recreation Director Macy Archon presented the department’s quarterly report to the Lakeville City Council on March 3, describing construction progress at Grand Prairie Park, plans for Spyglass Park Phase 2, program participation, facility reservations and staffing updates.

Archon said crews have completed framing for the Field Support Building at Grand Prairie Park, installed structural steel on the main building and completed backfill at the grandstand; contractors are continuing work and the project is progressing slowly but as expected. He said the department is aiming to open the pickleball courts, playground, splash pad and challenge course in July, weather permitting, and that the grandstand is anticipated to be complete by mid-September with a broader park opening scheduled in 2026.

Archon described Spyglass Park Phase 2 as a neighborhood park update that will add a multipurpose athletic deck; staff distributed 230 survey emails and received 53 comments and have revised the master plan accordingly. Construction is scheduled for 2025.

On operations, Archon said staff flooded ice rinks this winter, supported warming houses at 10 locations across 20 rinks and recorded more than 14,000 user-hours (the count is hourly and contains duplication). The department installed a new Proxis locking system across several park buildings, with the current phase largely complete and a planned phase 2 for the Heritage Center later in the year.

Archon announced three retirements in the parks maintenance crew (including a 19-year retirement for Mark Deshaun) and said three new hires have been or will be onboarded; he named a new hire, Matt Stonestrom, who started mid-February.

Reservations and program numbers included 59 reservations so far for the John Hennen Pavilion under a new two-per-day May–August slot system, and 95 shelter reservations. Special events reported attendance of roughly 500 for Santa’s Secret Store, about 200 for the Illumination Walk, about 100 for a youth ice-fishing event, and smaller counts for other seasonal programs. The art center reported $5,800 in sales from a holiday art sale and empty-bowls fundraiser; the Heritage Center reports more than 1,607 members.

Archon also described a two-day strategic-planning process for recreation and the Heritage Center that will lead to implementation plans and future council work sessions, and said the city will refresh the parks-and-rec pages as part of a broader website update later this year.

Why it matters: Construction and programming timelines affect when new facilities become available to residents and influence departmental budgets, staffing and operations. The council asked for schedule details; Archon offered to share the full construction schedule of Grand Prairie Park.

After the report, council members asked for construction milestones and noted appreciation for the department’s programming.