COTTONWOOD — Plans to start work on a splash pad and beach restoration at a lakeside park in Cottonwood can take a step forward, as the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources receives $350,000 in federal grant funding.

Cottonwood City Administrator Teather Bliss said the city is working with engineers to prepare for an archeological survey at the park before any construction work can be done.

“Right now, the big thing we’re doing is we want to get the beach done,” Bliss said.

Planned renovations at C.W Reishus Park include building up a sand beach, she said.

Last week, the U.S. National Park Service publicly announced that the DNR received a Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant for renovations at C.W. Reishus Park in Cottonwood. The LWCF program provides matching grant funding for state, tribe, and local park projects, the NPS said.

Funding for the grants comes primarily from offshore oil lease revenue authorized under the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020, the NPS said.

The DNR will receive the $350,000 grant and cooperate with the city of Cottonwood. The project will build a splash pad and bathhouse at C.W. Reishus Park, as well as updating features like the playground and sidewalks, and rehabilitating the shoreline, the NPS said.

Bliss said Cottonwood had been waiting the past few months to actually receive the grant funding.

“We got notified at the beginning of the year, but all the funding was frozen,” Bliss said.

Now that the funding is actually being released, it will make it possible to start the archeological survey. Excavations for the survey will start next week, she said.

If there are no further findings after the survey, construction plans can move forward. The splash pad project has already faced some delays.

“It’s taken a year longer than we expected,” Bliss said. However, the delay has given the city time to refine ideas for the splash pad design, and help try to keep the project on budget. Currently, the project is coming in at a cost of about $1.1 million, compared to an $800,000 budget, Bliss said.

The big challenge for controlling expenses will be the bathhouse for the splash pad, bliss said.

“That is where the money begins to rack up,” she said.

Bliss said the city hopes to break ground on the splash pad next year.