Lake Norman swimming beach to open by Memorial Day 2016

Mecklenburg County’s first swimming beach at a county-run park since the 1970s is still on track to open by Memorial Day 2016 at Ramsey Creek Park on Lake Norman, county Park and Recreation Director Jim Garges said Friday.

The county banned swimming at its parks after several drownings in the late 1970s, but the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce has pushed for its return since the late 1990s.

Mecklenburg County commissioners voted unanimously in 2009 to lift the ban. But plans were curtailed by severe budget cuts to the Park and Recreation Department because of the recession.

“It has been a long time coming,” Garges said after updating Lake Norman business leaders at the chamber. “We’re very excited about it, and I know people up here in the north and across the county are, too. Good thing coming.”

“Up until this point, the only people who could access the lake are those who own homes on the lake, operate personal watercraft or know someone who does,” Chamber President and CEO Bill Russell said. “That leaves out a great many citizens and visitors to the lake – our greatest liquid asset.”

The county is spending $425,700 to design and build the beach with bond money approved by voters in 2008.

Garges said work is scheduled to begin early this summer.

Plans call for a fenced, half-acre sandy beach and a 4 1/2-foot-deep, half-acre swimming area that will be staffed by lifeguards from dawn to dusk, Memorial Day until at least Labor Day. The bathroom building will be renovated, and picnic areas will be all around the beach area, Garges said.

The park has 128 parking spaces. County officials tried to free more spaces for swimmers by seeing if they could require boaters who park at the Ramsey Creek Park boat landing to use the one at Blythe Landing Park in Huntersville instead. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected the idea of closing a boat landing, Garges said.

Entrance fees will be charged, although Garges said “we’ll be lucky to make enough to pay the guard staff.”

Fees from Memorial Day to Labor Day will be $3 per vehicle for Mecklenburg County residents and $5 per vehicle for non-residents, he said. The per-vehicle cost to seniors will be $2 for county residents and $3 for non-residents.

Season passes will cost $52 for county residents, $77 for non-residents, and $32 for seniors and people with disabilities who live in the county and $40 for those who don’t.

Sally Ashworth, executive director of Cornelius-based Visit Lake Norman, said her agency fields calls and visitors daily who ask where they can swim at the lake. She’s had to point them well to the north to Lake Norman State Park in Troutman, she said.

Beginning next Memorial Day? Just down the road.

This story was originally published May 15, 2015 at 7:12 PM with the headline "Lake Norman swimming beach to open by Memorial Day 2016."