Reindahl Park Just Got a Winter Season
October 15, 2026
October 15, 2026
The splash park at Reindahl closed for the year on Labor Day, as it always does. Three weeks later, on Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, a ribbon was cut at 1814 Parkside Drive. That afternoon Madison Public Library opened its first new branch in 26 years, and it sits inside the same park.
The Imagination Center at Reindahl Park is being covered as a library story, and it is one. It also changes how the park works. Until this fall, almost everything at Reindahl was built for warm weather. Now the park has a building that stays open on weeknights through the winter, and two more pieces are on a schedule that runs into 2027.
Reindahl covers 90.74 acres off East Washington Avenue. According to the City of Madison's park listing, it has nine multipurpose fields, cricket fields, a full basketball court, and eight asphalt tennis courts, four of them striped for pickleball. It also has a shelter, a community garden, and ample parking.
The free splash park, which has restrooms, runs daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. Fields and courts are mostly first-come, first-served unless a league has reserved them.
Those are good amenities, and nearly all of them depend on the season. None offered a warm room on a January evening. The northeast side also had no library within walking distance. The Madison Public Library Foundation names Hawthorne as the closest branch, almost three miles away. The Foundation also points to a shortage of public gathering and meeting space on that side of the city.
The library's location page lists these hours:
The library stays open until 8 p.m. on weeknights, the same closing time the splash park keeps in summer. Once Madison's early winter sunsets arrive, that means a park building with its lights on well after dark.
Inside, Northside News reported a 46,000-item collection, a community room, a classroom, three study rooms, a family hub, a tech hub, a quiet reading room, and four outdoor patios. Outside, it described savanna-inspired native plantings and a solar tree. The library's own facilities list confirms the three study rooms and adds a story walk.
A few practical details from the library's own pages:
| Space or service | What the library lists |
|---|---|
| Community room | Seats 54, with AV and Zoom capability |
| Classroom | Seats 16, with AV, Zoom, and whiteboards; reserved for community partners and library staff |
| Public computers | Two hours of use per day, plus Wi-Fi, printing, copying, and scanning |
| Parking | Lot with accessible spaces southeast of the building, reached from Parkside Drive via Portage Road or East Washington Avenue |
As of this writing, the library's meeting rooms page still asked visitors to check back after opening for booking availability. If you want to host a neighborhood group meeting there, check that page before you plan around it. The Foundation says the park is served by Madison's Rapid Transit Line but does not name a stop, so check Metro's trip planner for the closest one.
The first month of programming shows a library that treats the park around it as part of its space. Many of October's listings are about birds, gardens, and nature, and a few others teach hands-on crafts. These dates come from the branch's events listing and the library's Nature Everywhere series:
Opening weekend set the same pattern. On Sept. 25, the library ran library-card signups from 4 to 8 p.m., kids' activities at the park pavilion, and a showing of "Dog Man" in the park. Saturday opened with a nature walk and story time, added a food truck, and closed with a 2 p.m. set by Madison's Forward Marching Band.
The November calendar for this branch had not been posted when this was written. Watch the location page for it.
The building and the park meet most literally at the back of the library. At the Sept. 25 opening, the City dedicated The Passage of Being by artist Nate Page. It stands about 16 feet high, 10 feet wide, and 30 inches deep, in the parkland just behind the Imagination Center.
The City's announcement says the piece has two sides. The side facing the library is made of layered planes of color drawn from the national flags of prominent immigrant communities in Northeast Madison, meant as a community opening a path toward nature. The other side is reflective, and it mirrors the park and its activity back onto the library's architecture.
The Madison Arts Commission chose the piece with the Parks Division and Madison Public Library. The process included a community survey answered by more than 1,200 residents and classroom workshops with students at Sandburg Elementary School.
The library is the first finished piece. Two more have dates attached:
Once both are done, the park will have a library open on weeknights, an enclosed room that can be booked in every season, and a playground near both. That is a different place from the summer park of fields, courts, and a splash pad.
The Cap Times traces the idea of a library in Reindahl Park to the mid-2000s and credits former Ald. Joe Clausius and former Mayor Paul Soglin. Madison Public Library calls the result more than a decade of neighborhood advocacy, shaped by hundreds of staff-led conversations with northeast-side residents.
The project's own name shows how those conversations shaped it. When the City announced a state grant in October 2024, it described more than a library. The plan included broadband, computers, meeting and study rooms, and enclosed pavilion space, serving more than 19,300 people.
The money came from several places. Madison Public Library now estimates about $18 million for construction, furnishings, and the opening-day collection. That figure includes $4.25 million from the state's Flexible Facilities Grant and $4.5 million from the Library Foundation, with City capital funds covering more. The Foundation's $5 million capital campaign, launched in 2022, reached its goal this summer with support from more than 250 individuals, organizations, and foundations. Future gala proceeds and donations go to an endowment. Earlier figures were different: the 2022 concept was presented as a $16.1 million project.
JLA Architects designed the building, and Saiki Design handled the landscape. That landscape is the savanna plantings, patios, and story walk that tie the library to the fields around it.
The Foundation describes the Imagination Center as Madison Public Library's answer to a northeast side with no walkable branch and too few places to gather. The fields at Reindahl will fill up again in spring. The library is open at 10 a.m. Monday.
If you're on the northeast side and wondering how the Imagination Center, the pavilion, and next spring's playground fit into your own plans, Madison Home Guides is happy to share what we know about the area around Reindahl and Parkside Drive. Let's Connect.
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