Bathrooms, Pavilion Coming to Swing Bridge Park

If you’re like reader Diane Baum in your love for the Rock Island Swing Bridge, you may be very excited by the Inver Grove Heights City Council’s decision to give the nod to a well-appointed picnic pavilion and year-round bathrooms at the park.

The $1.3 million in improvements will also include 40 parking stalls and interpretive signs explaining the bridge’s history and scenery, according to documents from the City Council’s June 10 meeting.

According to the Southwest Review, the picnic pavilion will also include electrical outlets for everything from blenders to crock-pots.

“Undoubtedly, there’s going to be a graduation party, some kind of a picnic where somebody’s going to bring a crock pot, so we’ve electrical outlets lined up at that location so you can line up your crock pots and have a good old-fashioned Minnesota picnic,” the city’s parks director Eric Carlson said, according to the paper.

Much of the project’s cost is being borne by county, state, and federal coffers, according to City Council documents—the city’s contribution is only $300,000, all of which is drawn from a $1 million state grant, itself drawn from state bonding funds. The pavilion and bathrooms will also be used by visitors to the Mississippi River Regional Trail, part of a network stretching from Itasca to New Orleans.