After an extensive three-year rehabilitation, the City of Edmonton says Hawrelak Park will reopen this winter.
No firm date is set, but the city expects the park will be open within the next few months — either towards the end of 2025 or in early 2026.
The large park in the North Saskatchewan River Valley has been closed since 2023 for an above and underground overhaul.
The Hawrelak Park project addressed outdated utilities, transportation, open spaces and facility infrastructure throughout the entire park.
Most of the infrastructure in Hawrelak was original to the park since its opening in 1967 and had exceeded its lifespan.
“We really had to go in and make sure that we addressed it, because of the aging infrastructure,” said Matthew Everett, a general supervisor of facility infrastructure delivery for the city.
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Before finalizing the rehabilitation plan, there was extensive debate in the city over which route to take: take down portions of the park and complete the work over a decade while maintaining limited access, or undertake a complete three-year closure to get it all done at once.
The city elected for the latter, despite an outcry from some community groups.
“When it’s closed down for three years, it is a long time and I know a lot of families do gather here,” said Everett.
“There is a lot of events and programs that are here and we’re excited to bring that back in the coming year.”
The closure forced Edmonton Heritage Festival to relocate to Borden Park.
Heritage organizers said part of the agreement to move the food and culture festival included a memorandum of understanding with the City of Edmonton guaranteeing a right to return to Hawrelak Park, an agreement about incremental cost coverage and improvements to the site’s egress.
The festival says it’s looking forward to going home.
“”We basically set up a small village for three days over a weekend,” said Rob Rohatyn with the Edmonton Heritage Festival Association.
“It takes a lot of planning and preparations but a lot of infrastructure to make our festival successful and Hawrelak Park certainly accommodates our festival.”
The rehabilitation work included updates to the main pavilion structure and plaza’s finishes, fixtures, skate flooring, commercial kitchen, mechanical and electrical systems and adding gender-neutral washrooms.
A large part of the work involved digging up and replacing underground lines and pipes.
The city has replaced the entire storm sewer, irrigation and water systems and upgraded power, gas and telecommunications. It also expanded water service to provide firefighting coverage in several areas of the park.
The Heritage Amphitheatre also saw several changes: new outdoor seating and finishes as well as lighting, structural, mechanical and electrical upgrades, along with the addition of family/gender-neutral washrooms and increased storage. The green room and back-of-house access will also be reconfigured.
In the park’s open spaces, the playground and paddle boat dock was replaced. The city added more lighting, bicycle parking and shared-use paths, connecting amenities, and repaving all roads. Sediment from the bottom of the lake was also dredged.
The work should leave the massive river valley park updated for decades to come.
“It’s just a really welcoming layout for our festival attendees to experience the space, but also our festival,” Rohatyn said.
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