Dan Nichols loves spending time outdoors, but a serious injury has made access to the water difficult for the retired Navy vet. He remembers learning to fish from his father on a boat where he could freely maneuver, he said.

Nichols, who served in the Navy for 22 years, was paralyzed from the neck down. Ever since a surgery that improved his mobility, he’s used an electric-powered wheelchair for day-to-day life.

As essential as his mobility aids are, many of the outdoor activities he loves are still inaccessible. 

He said it’s a lonely reality.

“You really end up spending a lot of time alone at home,” Nichols told the Business Record. “A lot of depression can set in with that.”

On May 5, Polk County Conservation opened the Athene North Shore Recreation Area at Easter Lake Park after two years and a $23.1 million renovation. County officials said the new park is the most universally accessible – which means every person can use the amenities, regardless of disability – in the country. 

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds attended a dedication ceremony held at the park on May 2, along with the conservation team, donors, state officials and members of the public. 

Nichols is making plans to take advantage of the space. He’s looking forward to unobstructed days on the playground with his 5-year-old granddaughter, Aubrey. 

In his capacity as a local leader of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, Nichols is organizing a reunion of the Iowa chapter’s members and their families on Easter Lake’s north shore in early June. 

“The ability to go out and go fishing – it’s something I never thought I would ever do again,” Nichols said. “And being able to do that with other folks, some of whom have the same conditions, is a shared experience that’s just wonderful.”

The park updates include wide concrete pathways designed with an inclusive slope, beach mats so wheelchairs roll right up to the water, a wheelchair-accessible pontoon, and a quiet de-escalation room for people with sensory input conditions. Signage with instructions in multiple languages, Braille and icons, is posted at eye level for visibility to people who are seated, which means someone using a wheelchair doesn’t have to crane their neck to see important information. 

Polk County Conservation – which spearheaded the project along with support from corporate sponsors –  hope the changes will make the already popular park accessible to more people from Iowa and across the nation, who will bring their spending money with them. 

“When you hear the term ‘universal accessibility,’ it’s easy to focus on the word accessible,” Jessica Lown, Polk County Conservation community outreach supervisor,  said. While that’s important, she said, “we also want people to equally think about that idea of universality. We’re doing our best to accommodate all people and create a space where all people can connect.”

In 2022, the Business Record reported that the conservation board and its corporate sponsors aimed to raise an additional $500,000 – bringing the total funds raised to $8.6 million – to fund a full-time position for a program coordinator.

The fundraising committee reached its goal before construction began in spring 2023. Devon Boes was hired shortly after to be the program and outreach coordinator for the Athene North Shore. She said her education in environmental science and a doctorate in occupational therapy helped prepare her for the new role.

“We’ve done the fundraising and we’ve built this incredible park,” Boes said. “Now we have to figure out how we are going to use that to connect people with nature.”

Boes will divide her time among community outreach, developing the park’s educational and recreational programs and leading park operations, including the ten to 12 seasonal employees who will staff the food concessions and equipment rentals.

One way she hopes to accomplish this goal is through partnerships with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and other organizations that meet the needs of people with disabilities. Boes has also lined up shows through Des Moines Performing Arts and inclusive educational workshops, like a workshop on using the new kayak transfer system.

Even before the new attractions, more than 1.1 million people visited Easter Lake Park in 2021. The new features will make the park accessible to the state’s nearly 400,000 people – including more than 46,000 veterans like Nichols – who experience disabilities, according to a 2022 report from the Iowa State Data Center. 

A lack of universally accessible spaces doesn’t just affect them, but their entire families.

“If a key member of the family can’t access a space for whatever reason, that makes it really hard for everybody else to do the same, or the family has to split up,” Lown said. “We want to create spaces where those connections can be continued and maintained and there doesn’t have to be a separation because of infrastructure or physical barriers or even communication barriers.”

Universal accessibility as a design principle unlocks these spaces, and Des Moines as a whole, for individual households to statewide and national groups like the Iowa chapter of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. 

Before the renovations to the Athene North Shore, Nichols said, the group was limited to very few public parks across the state that could accommodate the size and accessibility needs of the group. 

According to the park’s organizers, universal accessibility goes beyond the well-meaning but limited requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law more than 30 years ago. 

“The ADA did so much to make indoor spaces more accessible,” Boes said. “But I think that it can also limit people’s thought process when it comes to accommodations.”

When designing the park, Polk County Conservation and architects from Shive-Hattery created a framework they hope other park directors and businesses will be able to apply. 

“The idea wasn’t to say ‘good, bad or indifferent,’” Lown said of the toolkit. “The idea was to say: these are all the things that you can and should consider as you’re moving your way through a new park project.”

Joni Osmudson, a recreational therapist at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, is looking forward to the independence the Athene North Shore can restore for the veterans she works with. Hospital visits can only do so much for the overall well-being of a person who is recovering from an injury or illness.

“Maybe they’ve lost hope and are wondering – ‘Can I ever go fishing again? Will I ever be able to get in the water again?’” Osmudson said. “We can show them that they can still do what they’ve always loved to do, but maybe in a modified way.”