O’Day Park is a new O’Fallon city park being built on 57 acres off of Highway DD in Winghaven. So far, construction crews have only just broken ground on the new development.

The park is scheduled to open in January of 2019. The park will feature many types of walking trails, pavilions, a unique playground, a bird watching garden, dog park, sports fields, a lake, and eventually a zipline course.

“This park will probably be the most popular park of the city; there isn’t another park like this around here,” Tom Drabelle said, who is the Communication Director from the city of O’Fallon.

“I think there will be lots of weddings and receptions at the large rentable lodge area,” Drabelle said. “It really is such a beautiful area.”

Many of the ideas for O’Day Park came from residents in the area and what they wanted to see in a park.

“I’m excited for O’Day to open, I could definitely see myself hanging out there with my friends especially at the teen hangout pavilion,” sophomore Joey Mesnier said. Mesnier lives right in the Winghaven area near the future site of the park, so he’ll be one of the first to get a chance to check it out.  

The zipline won’t be there on opening day because a different private company would need to be hired to install it later, although because no other local parks feature a zipline, it is sure to become the main draw for the park.

Because O’Day is on the south side of O’Fallon, it will receive a large amount of foot traffic, as this is the area of O’Fallon that is growing fastest.