Two New Parks in Family-Friendly Blaine MN

It is two years later than expected but in Blaine MN, two new parks are nearing completion. They will open next spring.

The Blaine Athletic Complex is a 22-acre park with four lighted tennis courts, a half-mile of new trails, two baseball fields, a basketball court and a freshly seeded field for football, soccer and lacrosse.

Lakeside Commons Park features 170-acre Sunrise Lake, a 14- to 18-foot-deep man-made lake that was dug by Emmerich Development Corp. of Andover in 2003 as the namesake and top amenity of the 1,045-acre housing development.

The park features a boathouse that will include watercraft rentals, a 50-foot dock, a beach house with restrooms and changing facilities, a 100-person picnic pavilion with a large, built-in grill and electrical outlets, a playground, jogging and biking paths around the lake, and "splash pads" with motion-sensored water jets that come up from concrete squares.

Before the man-made lake, Blaine didn't have one. Now it has a 300-foot sand beach and swimming area. The parks are a major expansion of Blaine's parks and recreation offerings. The $2.4 million parks were funded largely by park development fees from the Lakes housing development collected since 2003 when the housing boom was still in action.