The Merriam Park Rebuild Keeps the Sledding Hill and Redraws the Paths

The park at 2000 St. Anthony Avenue is getting a roughly $2.2 million to $2.3 million rebuild. The St. Paul City Council approved the concept plan on June 17, 2026, and the mayor signed it a week later. The headline number makes it sound like the park will come back as a different place. Read the plan line by line and the main targets are the routes through the park and the water that drains across it. The sledding hill, the 1953 rec center and the skate park along Prior Avenue are either protected, left out of the project or saved for a later phase.

So this fall and winter look a lot like any other at Merriam Park. The bigger change is the shape of the park you'll walk through in late 2027.

What the open house actually asked for

Parks staff began gathering community input in 2024. Then came a vision plan, followed by design and engineering through 2025 and 2026, shaped with a design advisory group. After an April open house and an online survey, the Villager reported the priorities in this order:

1. A new playground
2. An east-west connection through the park
3. A Prior Avenue entrance
4. Gathering spaces
5. Wayfinding signs
6. Bike racks
7. Lighting and safety improvements

Only the first item on that list is a new piece of equipment. Most of the rest is about getting into the park, crossing it and finding your way around once you're there. Separately, people asked the city to keep the sledding hill. Put those together and the brief to the designers was mainly to make the park easier to get through, with the sledding hill left alone.

Ward 4 Council Member Molly Coleman, who represents the area, put it plainly to the Pioneer Press: "For a whole host of folks, this is their nearest park." The park covers 10 acres, and the plan adds new walkways and circulation improvements across it.

Half-court today, full court in the plan

The city's facility page lists what's there now: a playground, the skate park, the sledding hill, baseball and softball fields, a soccer field, a basketball half-court, a batting cage, picnic tables and two tennis courts. Set that list against the approved scope and the changes are easy to see.

Going from half-court to full court is the biggest jump in actual playing space. The Villager also said the improvements cover pickleball along with tennis and basketball. A soccer field along Prior Avenue, north of the baseball field, was described only as "under consideration," so don't count on it until the drawings are final.

Why drainage gets so much attention

The plan's least visible line item says a lot about how the park works today. The Villager reported that drainage and runoff "have been issues at the park in the past." The plan answers with stormwater infrastructure and plantings spread across the grounds.

That ties back to the path priorities. A new walkway or a restored court doesn't help much if water sits on it after a storm. Putting stormwater work into the same project as the new circulation means the routes residents asked for are designed to stay usable. It's also why the park will look different in 2027 even where no new equipment goes in, because the plantings that slow runoff will be part of the grounds.

The money comes from St. Paul's 1-cent local sales tax increase, which took effect in 2024. The city projects about $1 billion over 20 years, with $246 million set aside for parks and recreation facilities. Merriam Park's share is roughly $2 million.

The skate park comes later, and that's by design

Merriam Park's skate park opened in 2003 as the first skate park in St. Paul. Clare Cloyd, the city's public services manager, called it heavily used and said that's why the city went after an expansion.

Its upgrade runs on its own track. In 2025, City of Skate, a coalition of Twin Cities skaters working on public skate spaces, secured a $500,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. That money couldn't be released until the council approved the overall vision plan, and the June vote did that. Skate park design was expected to start in 2026. Construction is a separate future phase.

The 23-year-old skate park along Prior Avenue will be enlarged and improved in that later phase, and we haven't found a published construction schedule for that phase. Coleman told the Pioneer Press she remembers the skate park going in when she was in middle school. She called the investment "a really big deal" for "something that is such a staple in the neighborhood."

When the work starts, and what's still unconfirmed

The city's schedule calls for construction bids this fall, possible early site work later in 2026, and most of the construction in spring and summer 2027. As of today, September 30, we haven't found a published bid award, a named contractor or a firm start date. The city's project page was last updated in May and still describes bidding as planned for fall. Treat the 2027 timeline as the city's plan, and expect fencing to go up whenever site work actually starts.

The building is the one thing the schedule doesn't touch. The Merriam Park Recreation Center and its attached community center are outside the project. Its fall hours took effect September 8, 2026. Open gym, tot time, after-school activities, family events and youth and adult athletics all run from inside a building the plan doesn't change. If you want the full detail on the outdoor design, the Pioneer Press's June report on the council vote and the Villager's coverage of the open house are the two best places to start.

This fall, at the park and a few blocks north

The calendar between now and Thanksgiving is the park as it stands, plus Merriam Park Library at 1831 Marshall Avenue.

• Thursdays, 6 to 7 p.m., Merriam Park Library. Draw & Swap is an all-ages sketch session. Finished work goes up on the lobby community art board. Remaining dates are October 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, and November 12 and 19.
• Thursday, October 15, 5 to 7:30 p.m., Merriam Park. The Merriam Park Boo Bash is on the city's fall events calendar.
• Thursday, October 15, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Merriam Park Library. "Fitzgerald in Saint Paul: Short Stories with Klecko" features Bill Keefe and Tom Cassidy and the story "Forging Ahead."
• Tuesday, November 3, 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., Merriam Park Library. The Merriam Park Book Club meets.

October 15 is the busiest evening on that list. The Boo Bash starts at 5 at the park, Draw & Swap begins at 6 at the library, and the Fitzgerald reading follows at 6:30. After that, the next change to the park will most likely be construction fencing, and the city's project page is where a start date should show up first.

If you live near the park and are wondering how a 2027 rebuild, a new Prior Avenue entrance or a full basketball court might affect a future sale or the way a listing describes your block, I'm happy to talk it through. Natasha Cejudo follows these Merriam Park projects closely. Let's connect and start the conversation.