Anyone who does the loop at Raccoon River Park knows the rhythm. Park at the Grand Avenue lot, head out along the crushed rock and asphalt path that wraps Blue Heron Lake, pass the softball complex, and eventually land at the dog park on the east edge. For years, that corner has functioned like a cul-de-sac. You let the dog off leash, you turn around, you retrace your steps back to the car. The park has always been a destination you drive to and leave from the same way.
That is changing on both ends at once, and the direction it is changing in says something about how West Des Moines sees this park. It is stopping being a place you visit and becoming a segment of something longer.
The West Side Already Made Its Move
The quieter half of this story already happened. In October 2024, the city opened the Athene Pedestrian Bridge, a 620-foot steel truss structure spanning the Raccoon River that connects the park directly to Walnut Woods State Park. If you have crossed it, you know it turned what used to be a there-and-back walk along the lake into a route that keeps going, into hardwood forest trail on the other side of the river.
Most people who use the park regularly have already absorbed this into their routine without thinking about it as infrastructure. It is just the way to get to Walnut Woods now. But it set a precedent: the park's boundaries were never fixed, they were just waiting on a bridge.
The East Side Is Catching Up
The east end, the dog park side, has been the actual dead end until now. That is the piece under construction this fall.
The city is building the 1st Street Trail, which completes a walking and biking connection from the 1st Street bridge north to Lincoln Street. According to Axios reporting from December 2025, West Des Moines park planner Eric Doll put the cost at $400,000 to $500,000, with completion targeted for fall 2026, which is to say now.
That trail is designed to link up with something new: an ICON water trail river access site and trailhead sited directly south of Valley Junction, inside the 35-acre Raccoon River Greenway. The project drew a $125,000 grant from the MidAmerican Energy Regional Fund, a $5 million endowment the Great Outdoors Foundation has been putting toward river access points across the metro.
"The city of West Des Moines' project truly embodies the connectivity that's at the core of ICON Water Trails."
That's Hannah Inman, CEO of the Great Outdoors Foundation, in the foundation's announcement of the grant. It is the kind of line that sounds like boilerplate until you trace what it is actually describing: a boat launch and trailhead near Valley Junction that did not connect to anything until this trail gets built.
From that new trailhead, a second segment called the Raccoon River East Greenway Trail runs west for roughly 1.5 miles, crossing a new bridge over Jordan Creek near where it meets the Raccoon River, and arriving at Raccoon River Park right at the dog park. Combined, the two connected projects come with a rough $1.4 million price tag, and the city is aiming to have the corridor stitched together by the end of 2026.
Why the Dog Park Corner Is the Real Story
Here is the detail that makes this more than a trail-map update. In April 2026, Axios reported that the city is separately planning a shelter structure at the dog park itself.
Put those two projects next to each other and the dog park stops looking like an afterthought at the edge of the property. It is becoming the hinge the whole east-side connection swings on: the spot where a new regional trail will land, and the spot the city is investing in as a destination in its own right rather than just a fenced field you drive to.
The dog park has been a solid amenity for a long time. It is a 10-acre fenced area east of the softball complex, open daily from 6:30 a.m. until dusk, with separate space for large and small dogs. What it has not been is a through-point. That is the part about to change.
Already Open vs. Still Coming
It is worth being precise about what is finished and what is not, because the pieces are landing on different timelines.
Already open:
- The Athene Pedestrian Bridge, connecting Raccoon River Park to Walnut Woods State Park since October 2024
- The existing 3.2-mile trail loop around Blue Heron Lake
- The 10-acre dog park on the east side of the park
Still under construction:
- The 1st Street Trail, targeted for completion this fall
- The Raccoon River East Greenway Trail and its Jordan Creek bridge, part of the roughly $1.4 million push aimed at wrapping up by the end of 2026
- The new ICON river access site and trailhead near Valley Junction, which the ICON Water Trails team itself describes as not quite finished, with work ongoing to prepare it for public use
- The dog park shelter announced this spring
What Changes for the People Who Already Loop This Park
If you already have a dog park permit, or you already do the lake loop on weekends, the practical shift is this: the corner of the park you currently treat as a turnaround point is being built out to connect east toward Valley Junction, on top of already connecting west to Walnut Woods. Once both ends are finished, the park stops being the whole trip and starts being the middle of a longer one, a state park on one side and a river access point near Valley Junction on the other.
None of this is finished yet, and the timeline has some give in it. The city's own target for the ICON access site and the East Greenway segment runs to the end of 2026, and the ICON Water Trails team has been upfront that the site itself still needs work before it is ready for public use. The 1st Street Trail piece is the one with the firmer date, aimed at this fall.
What is not in question is the direction. West Des Moines has spent the last two years turning a park that used to have two dead ends into one that will have none, and the dog park corner that has felt like an afterthought for years is where that work is actually happening.
If you are walking the loop this fall and notice construction near the dog park or a new bridge going up over Jordan Creek, that is what you are looking at. It is not a detour. It is the park getting bigger without moving its fence line.
For more on what is happening around West Des Moines and the communities nearby, the team at Megan Mitchum + CO keeps a close eye on the details that make a neighborhood worth knowing well, whether or not you are in the market to move. Reach out anytime with questions about this corner of the metro.
