25 to watch in 2025: Lexington Parks Director Monica Conrad will oversee parks expansion

Editor’s note: The Herald-Leader is profiling 25 individuals we predict will be making news in 2025.

Who: Monica Conrad, director of Lexington Parks and Recreation.

Background: Monica Conrad will celebrate her 10th anniversary in June 2025 as executive director of the city’s parks and recreation program. Thanks to federal coronavirus relief money, Conrad has overseen one of the largest expansions of parks and recreation in city history over the past four years. More than $24 million in COVID relief money has gone to parks, transforming sport courts, building new restrooms, expanding trails and building more shelters in the city’s 100 parks.

Why 2025 will be notable: Conrad and her team’s to-do list for 2025 is long. Cardinal Run North, a new regional park which will include sport courts, walking trails and a dog park, will open later in 2025. In addition, the city is also deep into the planning for Kelley’s Landing, a new riverfront park along the Kentucky River, the first-ever water access for Fayette County paddlers.

Also under construction is a new senior center and therapeutic recreation center in Shillito Park. It’s to be completed in 2026. In November2024, voters approved a new tax for capital projects in the city’s parks, which is expected to generate more than $8 million a year. The upgrades to Lexington’s parks have been noticed. This year the department was a finalist for the National Gold Medal Award from the American Academy for Parks and Recreation Administration for outstanding parks programming, a first for the city.

What others say: “Monica takes the resources we dedicate to parks and turns them into new playgrounds and sports facilities and shelters and trails and programs and new parks and much more,” Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said. “She does it all on budget, and on time. It’s amazing, and it is reinventing our parks. Lexington is so glad she’s here.”

What Conrad says: “Lexington Parks & Recreation will have a transformative year in 2025, including our first new regional park in over 25 years (Cardinal Run Park North), a brand-new aquatic center (Douglass Aquatic Center), Lexington’s first park with public river access (Kelley’s Landing), a reimagined downtown park (Phoenix Park), a renovated historic center (Dunbar Community Center), and expanded arts space (Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center).

“Our team has an exciting year ahead, launching these projects and planning for the future with the newly created Parks Fund. What better way to celebrate our city’s 250th birthday than by honoring its legacy of a robust park system, while showing our commitment to improving recreational spaces for all.”

Beth Musgrave

Lexington Herald-Leader

Beth Musgrave has covered government and politics for the Herald-Leader for more than a decade. A graduate of Northwestern University, she has worked as a reporter in Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois and Washington D.C. Support my work with a digital subscription