Moorhead’s Romkey Park nears completion with pickleball courts and more
Romkey Park will reopen June 4 with pickleball courts, a free splash pad and a full family rec campus, turning one court stop into an all-day destination.
Romkey Park is poised to become Moorhead’s newest multigenerational pickleball stop, not just another place to get in a few games. When the park opens June 4, players will find pickleball courts woven into a larger recreation campus that also includes a new pool, a free splash pad, a skate park, playgrounds, a soccer field, basketball courts, a natural playground, a food forest and a sledding hill.
That broader setup is the point. The city’s Reimagine Romkey Park - Pool Replacement and Park Renewal project is replacing a site that dates to 1956 and a municipal pool that opened in 1958. City materials say the old pool was about 66 years old, well past the typical 25- to 40-year lifespan for pools in the region. Before it closed in 2024, Moorhead’s only all-ages public outdoor pool handled more than 400 swimming lessons a year and about 250 swimmers a day, a level of use that helps explain why officials kept the focus on recreation rather than a single amenity.
Public input shaped the final design. The city mailed more than 4,000 notices to households within a one-mile walking radius, reached swimming lesson participants, after-school program families and pool pass holders, and held an open house on Nov. 7, 2022. City materials say 28% of survey respondents lived in the neighborhood. In the final concept, the most requested additions were a skatepark and expanded playground, at 21% each, followed by a food forest at 17%, then a splash pad, waterslide and basketball courts at 14% each. Landscape plantings and a sledding hill each drew 12%.
The price tag for the full project was reported at $11.3 million. Funding included a $5 million federal grant through the Department of the Interior and National Park Service’s Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership program, a required $5 million local match and another $1.3 million approved by Moorhead to add the splash pad. The city broke ground in August 2024 after a planned ceremony was rained out, and the pool and park were expected to reopen in 2026.
For pickleball players, the value is in the setting as much as the courts. The splash pad will sit outside the pool fence and be free to use, while the 25-meter pool, diving well, slides and zero-depth entry wading pool give the site a true stay-all-day feel. Romkey is being rebuilt as a place where spouses, kids and grandkids can all find something to do, and that makes the courts part of a much bigger draw when play resumes.
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