WOODBURY, MN (WNN) – It’s a whimsical yet functional public art installation. It’s a prairie and woodland restoration site. It’s a water quality improvement project. It’s an outdoor educational experience space. It’s just a fun place to play and wander.

It’s not often that a new city park has the potential to be so many things for so many people, but that’s exactly what the backers and planners of Woodbury’s new Hasenbank Park hope it will be: a multipurpose park that is all of the above and more. The park is located along St. John’s Drive, with its entrance at 10552 Water Lily Lane, on the city’s east side, just north of Valley Creek Drive.

The new 5.5-acre park will not only connect the local neighborhoods with the Powers Lake trail loop, but will enhance the natural resources of the site, treat stormwater, make ecological processes visible, and restore critical habitat.

A collaboration between the South Washington Watershed District and the City of Woodbury that’s been several years in the making, Hasenbank Park will hold its grand opening Thursday, June 12, from 4 to 5 p.m. The park is named after the Hasenbank family, who were early farmers in the area.

Staff from the city and watershed district, along with engineers from Barr Engineering, will be on site to answer questions (and perhaps make a speech or two). The artists will be there to talk about their work. An ice cream truck will provide refreshments. And groups involved in the project and with water quality and parks in general will have tables to provide information for the public.  

The Washington Conservation District’s Facebook page offers this invitation for the event:

“Explore the trails, public art, restored Hasenbank Woods, and the park-wide stormwater infiltration system that brings it all together. Take a self-guided tour through the park and follow the path of water as it moves through the system. Get to know the story behind the public art offerings, and learn about the restoration efforts in Hasenbank Woods.

“This is a free community event, open to the public. There is no parking lot at Hasenbank Park, so visitors are encouraged to walk, bike, and carpool.” 

John Loomis, SWWD’s executive director, offered a more modest expectation for the event: “Hopefully it will be a chance for the neighbors to see that project that they’ve been watching over the last couple years.”  But he was quick to note that the park is innovative in combining habitat improvement, water quality protection measures and educational opportunities into one project. “All of our program ideas came together at this site,” he said. 

How It Came Together

The park is centered around two features: A wooded area on its east side and an open prairie area with stormwater filtration basins that incorporate art into their function. Long before the art (we’ll get to that shortly) became a thing, though, the main impetus for the park was a desire to protect the water quality of Powers Lake to the west. While Powers Lake is not impaired and its water quality is good, “We’re trying to do what we can to keep it that way,” Loomis said. 

The problem was that nutrient and chloride-rich water from Fish Lake and stormwater from other developed areas to the east flow into Powers Lake. 

A number of factors are contributing to the build-up of phosphorus and other chemicals in the sediment of Fish Lake. They include the agricultural past of eastern Woodbury and the subsequent development of Woodbury, specifically Dancing Waters, that added chlorides (from street salts and home water treatment systems).A passive discharge pipe from Fish Lake to Powers was just beginning to degrade the quality of Powers Lake, too so this project came about in the nick of time. 

The SWWD approached the City of Woodbury about using the city-owned parcel to construct a “best management practice” to protect Powers Lake, Loomis said, and in 2022 they began working together on the project. This was a multi-phased approach over several years. 

First came restoration of Hasenbank Woods, a remnant oak forest and savannah that had become overgrown with invasive species. A herd of goats was hired to help restore native plant species. The goats love to eat invasive species like buckthorn and garlic mustard, and their hooves help to push native tree and plant seeds further into the soil. 

In addition, work crews and volunteers thinned the woodland canopy, removed invasive species mechanically or by hand and reseeded the ground beneath the old-growth trees with native grasses, flowers and shrubs “to create a healthier, more resilient landscape,” according to a July 2024 article in the Stillwater Gazette. This restored landscape is better at filtering water as it flows toward Powers Lake.  

About That Art

Next came construction of a series of infiltration basins amidst restored prairie habitat designed to filter and absorb both stormwater and the water from Fish Lake. SWWD and the city worked with Barr Engineering on this part, and all three in turn worked with Minneapolis-based artist Christopher Harrison. According to the Gazette article, Harrison said he designed the giant gear-shaped stepping stones for the three filtration basins to be an interactive piece of art that would also “help visitors to understand how the mechanical part of the stormwater system…works. ‘Making the gears into a pathway allows people to walk through the system and see it up close,’ he explained. ‘It also makes them aware that there is so much more going on in the park than they might initially notice.’”

Other art in the park that helps to tell the story of water quality protection was designed by Minneapolis-based artist Aaron Dysart. He created a burr oak sculpture made of metal pipes resembling plumbing fixtures and a giant purple coneflower with roots made of pipes. The works celebrate “the juxtaposition of human-designed technology and natural biological processes put to work in Hasenbank Park,” according to the Gazette article.

When SWWD considers a project, it also tries to incorporate aspects that try to educate the public on why water quality matters, Loomis said. Use of art wasn’t initially part of the discussion early on, but as discussions progressed, the idea emerged that art could help tell the story better than large interpretive signs with a lot of words that not many people may read, he said. “At some point, we knew we wanted to incorporate art as part of the educational component,” Loomis said. “Hopefully, the public gets something more out of having longer-lasting sculptures out there.”

The watershed district is also now requesting proposals for art work for a project involving protection of Wilmes Lake at Kagel Park. 

Cost And Maintenance

The cost of the project, for design, construction, habitat restoration (including the goats), and the art all together was $1.5 million, Loomis said. There will be ongoing maintenance costs as well because it is an active BMP, he noted, with a pump station pushing water from Fish Lake through the series of filtration basins before it enters Powers Lake. However, with the way this one was designed, there should be less frequent maintenance of the landscape needed. 

“They (active BMPs) cost a lot. So it only makes sense to use them as community space,” Loomis said. 

Ongoing work will be needed to maintain parts of the park, so there will be opportunities for volunteers to get involved. An event to pull more garlic mustard and buckthorn is coming soon.  

Despite the need for ongoing maintenance, Loomis acknowledged that the woods are close to looking like they did before settlement of the land more than a hundred years ago: Native grasses and shrubs coming back amidst remnant oak woodland and oak savannah.

What Success Would Look Like

Besides visible habitat restoration, other measures of success for Loomis would be sustained, good water quality in Powers Lake (which will be monitored) and the site being actively used by neighbors and visitors. 

Woodbury resident Mike Madigan, an SWWD board member for almost a dozen years who was involved in the development of the project, agrees.  Asked what he’d like to see in five years, he replied, “People using and enjoying the park; good water quality in both Fish Lake and Powers Lake…Hopefully we can take Fish Lake and others off of the impaired waters list.”

Another measure of success for Madigan, not so easily measured, would be increased awareness and people acting to protect Woodbury’s water. “Woodbury probably has more water (bodies) than most communities, so we need to take care of them. Our aquifers are not endless. We need to make sure we are not polluting them…We need to pay attention to what goes into our drains.” 

For him, the educational component of Hasenbank Park, getting people to understand the relationship between a healthy prairie/woodland ecosystem and clean water, was critical. “I’m anxious to see if it works. I think it will.”

 Who Gets The Credit?

Both Loomis and Madigan were quick to give SWWD and city staff the credit for bringing the park development along. “They are the ones who really did the work,” Madigan said. They both gave a particular shout out to Kyle Axtell at SWWD. And Madigan also gave credit to Woodbury Mayor Anne Burt, who has been a long-time champion of environmental causes in Woodbury. 

But credit also goes to Woodbury residents themselves, they noted. Woodbury residents consistently rate water quality as high among their list of concerns for the city. “Because we have all of these trails and parks with lakes and waters, people can see these resources and appreciate them and want to protect them,” Madigan said.