Lions Memorial Park is partially open. The recreation center and Big Surf Pool are closed permanently and much of the park is fenced for a $46.2 million rebuild, but the bandshell, tennis courts, playground, and ball fields remain in use. New facilities are targeted to open in 2027. Meadows Aquatic Center and RecPlex are unaffected.
Key Takeaways
- Five park districts serve portions of Mount Prospect. The Mt. Prospect Park District covers the largest share and was incorporated in 1955, with 450-plus acres across 32 parks and facilities.
- Lions Memorial Park is partially open. The recreation center and Big Surf Pool are closed and the central and western portions are fenced, but the bandshell, tennis courts, playground, and both baseball fields remain accessible.
- There are no indoor restrooms at Lions right now, and parking is limited.
- RecPlex is the year-round anchor: a 93,000-square-foot complex opened in 1991 with an indoor pool, triple gymnasium, indoor track, and fitness space.
- The replacement at Lions is a 55,700-square-foot, two-story recreation center plus an all-ages community pool, six pickleball courts, a skate park, and a seasonal ice rink. Target opening is 2027.
- Voters approved the $46.2 million referendum in November 2024, the District's first successful referendum since 1969.
- Estimated tax impact is about $49 per $100,000 of fair market value, roughly $196 a year on a $400,000 home, over a 20-year bond term.
- The District participates in NWSRA, providing recreation programming for residents with disabilities.
- Busse Woods, a 3,558-acre Cook County forest preserve, sits a few minutes south.
Which Park District Serves My Mount Prospect Address?
It depends on the address, and you cannot guess it from the neighborhood name. Five park districts serve portions of Mount Prospect: Mt. Prospect, River Trails, Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, and Prospect Heights.
Most of the village falls under the Mt. Prospect Park District, and the northeast portion falls under the River Trails Park District. The other three cover smaller pieces around the edges.
That split matters for three practical reasons: it determines which pools and programs you get resident rates at, it appears as a separate line on your property tax bill, and it means two homes a few blocks apart can have completely different recreation options.
There's also a wrinkle that surprises people moving in. The Mt. Prospect Park District boundaries do not match the village boundaries. The district also serves portions of Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, and Elk Grove Village, covering a total population around 215,000. So a Mount Prospect address does not automatically mean Mt. Prospect Park District, and an Arlington Heights address does not automatically mean it isn't.
Check the address before you assume. The Village of Mount Prospect publishes a park district map, and the Mt. Prospect Park District can confirm it in about a minute.
Is Lions Memorial Park Closed?
Not entirely. The recreation center and Big Surf Pool are closed permanently and roughly the central and western portion of the property is fenced for construction. The bandshell, tennis courts, playground, and both baseball fields are still in use.
Here's the thing most online guides to Mount Prospect still get wrong. Big Surf Pool and the Lions Recreation Center are gone. Both came down starting in November 2025. A lot of listings and neighborhood write-ups still describe Big Surf as an active amenity. It isn't.
But the park itself is not closed, and that distinction is worth getting right in both directions.
What's Open and What Isn't
Still open:
- The Veterans Memorial Bandshell and fountain, still hosting concerts
- The tennis courts
- The playground, reached from the path near the ballfields at East Shabonee Trail and South School Street
- Both baseball fields
- Limited parking
Closed or fenced:
- Lions Recreation Center
- Big Surf Pool
- Much of the central and western park interior
- Indoor restrooms. There are none available right now, which matters more than it sounds if you're bringing small kids to a ball game
Two practical cautions. Parking is limited, so arrive earlier than you normally would for a concert or a game. And fencing and access routes shift as construction progresses, so expect some paths and areas to be temporarily blocked even though the park as a whole is open. The playground access route in particular is worth checking before you make the trip with kids.
The timeline: the Park District broke ground on October 30, 2025 at 411 S. Maple Street, and demolition followed in November. The District has pointed to a 2027 opening for the new facilities, with the park fully back in use that summer.
Treat 2027 as the target rather than the promise. Projects this size move, and the District's project page is the place to confirm current status before you plan around it.
Big Surf had reached the end of a genuinely long life. The original Lions Pool was replaced by the Big Surf Wave Pool in 1984, and the bathhouse dated to 1956. By the end, the pool shell was cracked, filters and heaters were failing, asbestos issues existed in the aging infrastructure, and the wave equipment and controls had been discontinued. It closed permanently after the 2025 season. The recreation center was built in 1970 under a voter-approved referendum and no longer met accessibility standards.
For context on how long this took: the board first asked staff to explore options for the aging pool and rec center back in 2015. A strategic plan followed in 2017, a comprehensive master plan in 2022, and the referendum in 2024. This was roughly a decade in the making.
What Is Being Built at Lions Memorial Park?
A 55,700-square-foot, two-story recreation center containing a gymnasium with three dividable full-size basketball courts, an elevated walking track, a dance studio, a multigenerational room, multi-purpose rooms, an art studio, and a preschool room. It includes an ADA-compliant elevator and family changing rooms with direct pool access, both of which the 1970 building lacked.
The new outdoor community pool replaces the wave format with lap lanes, water slides, a splash pad, a zero-depth entry area, and shade structures, plus a new bath house and equipment building. That shift is deliberate. The wave pool was difficult for young children and older adults to use, and the District chose an all-ages design instead.
Around it, the park is getting:
- Six pickleball courts, east of the existing tennis courts with matching fencing and wind screens
- A skate park and outdoor basketball court, east of the playground
- A seasonal ice rink south of the recreation center, a flood-type sheet of ice
- An outdoor game area and parking lot improvements
RecPlex is also in scope. Two basketball courts are being converted to a multisport artificial turf field with retractable partitions, and air conditioning is being added to the gym, which has limited its warm-season use for years.
Funding is a $46.2 million bond referendum that passed in November 2024 with about 64% approval, the District's first successful referendum since 1969. The Village of Mount Prospect also pledged $1.5 million in TIF funding toward the community pool and skate park. (Mt. Prospect Park District)
If you want a sense of how much this park means locally: Lions Memorial Park covers 20.8 acres and was established in 1955, on land the Mount Prospect Lions Club donated shortly after the park district formed. It held the district's first swimming pool and its first standalone recreation center. The bandshell and Veterans Memorial fountain came later, in 1999.
If you're buying near Lions Park: expect construction activity, staging, and traffic through the build, along with limited parking and reduced use of the park's interior. On the other side of it, you get a substantially upgraded destination park within walking distance.
Whether that reads as a negative or a positive depends entirely on your timeline. For someone planning to stay five-plus years, it's a clear win, and buying during the disruption may mean paying less for it. For someone selling next spring, it's a conversation, though an easier one than it would be if the park were fully shut. You can still point buyers to concerts at the bandshell and the ball fields in active use.
What Is RecPlex in Mount Prospect?
RecPlex is the Mt. Prospect Park District's main indoor facility, at 420 W. Dempster Street. It opened in 1991 and runs about 93,000 square feet, carrying most of the district's indoor programming:
- Indoor swimming pool
- Triple court gymnasium
- Indoor track
- Fitness space
A note if you're working from older listings or reviews: RecPlex's racquetball courts were slated to be combined into a new space with basketball hoops, so don't assume racquetball is still available. Confirm with the District if that's why you're joining.
For a Chicago-area suburb, having a facility this size matters more than it might sound. Illinois winters are long, and the difference between a town with a real indoor recreation center and one without shows up around February.
RecPlex is carrying extra load while the Lions rec center is out of service, and it's receiving referendum improvements of its own: two basketball courts converting to multisport artificial turf with retractable partitions, and air conditioning added to the gym.
Where Can You Swim in Mount Prospect?
Meadows Aquatic Center at 1401 W. Gregory Street is the district's operating outdoor pool while Lions is rebuilt. The RecPlex indoor pool runs year-round.
The district's summer pool pass historically covered Big Surf, Meadows, and the RecPlex indoor pool. With Big Surf offline, confirm current pass structure and pricing before you buy one.
If you're weighing a backyard pool instead, know that Mount Prospect has specific permitting rules. Our guide to swimming pool permits in Mount Prospect covers what's required and what happens if previous owners skipped the paperwork.
What Else Does the Park District Run?
Mount Prospect Golf Club gives the district something a lot of neighboring park districts don't have: a municipal course inside its own system, which keeps resident rates accessible.
Friendship Park Conservatory at 395 W. Algonquin Road is run by the Mt. Prospect Park District, though it physically sits in Des Plaines. It's a genuinely underrated local asset, particularly in winter, and it's free to walk through.
The surrounding Rosemary S. Argus Friendship Park completed a first phase of redevelopment separately from the referendum, funded by grants, private donations, and district capital. That work added a playground shelter, new pickleball courts, tennis court and ballfield improvements, new pathways, and a fitness station.
Two other things happening outside the referendum budget: the district has been replacing the ComEd Bike Path Trail through south Mount Prospect, and it's considering drainage improvements and a field expansion at Melas Park.
Neighborhood Parks
Beyond the marquee facilities, the district runs neighborhood playgrounds, ball diamonds, tennis and pickleball courts, and walking paths spread across the village. Most residential areas in Mount Prospect are within a short walk of at least one.
This is one of the quieter advantages of an older, built-out suburb. Park land was set aside when the village was developing, so it's distributed through neighborhoods rather than concentrated in one civic campus at the edge of town.
If proximity to a specific park matters to you, the Mount Prospect neighborhood guide maps out how the different areas sit relative to these facilities.
Is Busse Woods in Mount Prospect?
No. Ned Brown Preserve, better known as Busse Woods, sits a few minutes south in Elk Grove Village, and it adjoins Rolling Meadows and Schaumburg rather than Mount Prospect directly. It's an easy drive from most of the village.
At 3,558 acres it dwarfs anything Mount Prospect itself could offer, with nearly 13 miles of paved trail, a lake, picnic groves, and an elk pasture that's been there since 1925. The 1,213-acre Busse Forest Nature Preserve inside it holds National Natural Landmark status. (Forest Preserves of Cook County)
For a lot of Mount Prospect households, this is the real recreation answer. The park district handles programming and pools. Busse Woods handles distance running, cycling, and the kind of open space that makes a suburb feel less dense than it is.
Our guide to living near Busse Woods covers what buyers should know about the surrounding areas.
Does Mount Prospect Have Special Recreation Programs?
Yes. The Mt. Prospect Park District participates in NWSRA, the Northwest Special Recreation Association, which provides recreation programming for people with disabilities across member districts in the Northwest Suburbs.
This doesn't come up in most suburb guides, and it should. If you have a family member who would use those services, membership in an NWSRA district is a real factor in choosing where to buy, and it's not something you can tell from a listing.
Accessibility also drove a good part of the Lions rebuild. The 1970 recreation center didn't meet current accessibility standards, which limited who could actually use it. The replacement includes an ADA-compliant elevator, family changing rooms with direct pool access, and a zero-depth pool entry. The old Big Surf bathhouse, built in 1956, didn't meet ADA requirements either.
The facilities coming in 2027 will be meaningfully more usable than what they replace.
How Does the Park District Affect My Property Taxes?
Illinois park districts are separate taxing bodies. Your park district levy shows up as its own line item on your Cook County property tax bill, alongside your school districts, village, library, and county.
The referendum bonds are repaid through that levy, so the Lions rebuild does affect what Mt. Prospect Park District residents pay. The District estimated the impact at about $49 per $100,000 of a home's fair market value, which works out to roughly $196 a year on a $400,000 home. The bonds run a 20-year term, after which the District returns to its normal rate.
For perspective, the District's rate going into the referendum was 0.547 per $100 of Equalized Assessed Value, which it described as lower than most of its peer districts. So even with the bonds layered on, this is not an outlier levy for the area.
If you're budgeting for a purchase here, don't treat the seller's current tax bill as your future tax bill.
Two guides worth reading on this: how property taxes work in Cook County and the Mount Prospect cost of living guide.
Is Mount Prospect Good for Parks and Recreation?
Solid, with a specific caveat right now.
The strengths are real: a large indoor complex, a municipal golf course, a conservatory, well-distributed neighborhood parks, and Busse Woods a few minutes away. Against most Northwest Suburban peers, that's a competitive package. Our Mount Prospect vs Palatine comparison puts the two park systems side by side.
The caveat is timing. The village's flagship recreation center and outdoor pool are gone until 2027, and a good portion of Lions Memorial Park is behind construction fence. If summer pool access is central to your family's routine, the next stretch will feel thinner than the long-term picture warrants, and Meadows will be carrying the load.
If your horizon is longer than that, you're buying into a system that just committed $46 million to renewing itself. That's not nothing.
For the bigger picture on the village, start with our complete guide to living in Mount Prospect.
Questions About a Specific Address?
Park district boundaries here are genuinely confusing, and the construction makes it worse.
Send me an address and I'll tell you which district it falls in, how the Lions build affects that street, and what the park line on the tax bill actually looks like. That's a short conversation and it answers something you can't get from a listing.
Book a call at tinyurl.com/talk2mari
I also share neighborhood walkthroughs and local updates on Life in the NW Burbs. Email works too: [email protected]. The full guide library is at MyRealtorMari.com.
Common Questions About Mount Prospect Parks
Is Big Surf Pool in Mount Prospect still open?
No. Big Surf Pool closed permanently after the 2025 season and was demolished starting in November 2025. The Mt. Prospect Park District is replacing it with a new all-ages outdoor community pool featuring lap lanes, water slides, and a zero-depth entry, funded by a voter-approved $46.2 million referendum.
Is Lions Memorial Park closed?
Not entirely. The recreation center and Big Surf Pool are closed and much of the central and western property is fenced for construction. The Veterans Memorial Bandshell, tennis courts, playground, and both baseball fields remain open, with limited parking and no indoor restrooms available.
When will the new Lions Recreation Center and pool open?
The Park District broke ground October 30, 2025 and has pointed to a 2027 opening, with the park fully back in use that summer. Treat that as a target rather than a promise, and confirm the current timeline directly with the Mt. Prospect Park District.
Which park district serves Mount Prospect?
Five do. Most of the village is served by the Mt. Prospect Park District and the northeast portion by River Trails, with Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, and Prospect Heights covering smaller portions. Boundaries don't follow village lines, so verify by address.
How much did the Mount Prospect park referendum add to property taxes?
The Mt. Prospect Park District estimated the $46.2 million bond referendum at about $49 per $100,000 of a home's fair market value, roughly $196 per year on a $400,000 home. The bonds are repaid over a 20-year term.
Is Busse Woods in Mount Prospect?
No. Busse Woods, officially Ned Brown Preserve, sits a few minutes south in Elk Grove Village. The 3,558-acre Cook County forest preserve includes nearly 13 miles of paved trail, a lake, picnic groves, and an elk pasture, and is easily reached from most of Mount Prospect.
About the Author
Mari Van Meter is a REALTOR® with the Dragonfly Home Team at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices American Heritage Real Estate, serving Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights, Palatine, Buffalo Grove, Wheeling, and the surrounding Northwest Suburbs of Chicago. She holds the C2EX, SRES, PSA, and ABR designations. She works most often with homeowners navigating a divorce, a downsize, or a relocation, and she keeps close track of details like park district boundaries and construction timelines because they turn out to matter a great deal to families deciding where to land. More at MyRealtorMari.com and about Mari.
