Walk the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge this month and you'll notice the cranes are gone. For most of the past year, anyone crossing between Omaha and Council Bluffs watched a steel frame climb out of the trees on the Iowa side, unsure exactly what it would become or when it would actually open. That question gets answered on September 19, when the MidAmerican Energy Adventure Tower and the Borman Family Treetop Walk open to the public at Tom Hanafan River's Edge Park.
What most residents haven't sorted out yet is what "opens" actually covers, and what it doesn't. The tower is real. The pier attached to it is already finished. But the dog park and second playground that a lot of people have been mentally filing under "the River's Edge project" belong to a different phase entirely, one that doesn't have a firm date yet and, as of this past February, didn't even have a confirmed location.
What's actually ready on September 19
The city has set the opening for 10 a.m. on a Saturday, with the tower and treetop walk both accessible from the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge on the Council Bluffs side. Parking runs through the garage at River's Edge Pavilion, and the city is stationing food trucks near the base of the bridge from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. to mark the day.
The tower itself stands 138 feet above the forest floor, built with a $5 million contribution from MidAmerican Energy. It's not just an observation deck. The structure includes a 50-foot outdoor climbing wall built to the standards used for pre-Olympic speed climbing, a caving course that runs 400 linear feet through a simulated cave environment, and two 480-foot roll-glide tracks that suspend riders in a harness and loop them back around the trees to a platform on the tower. The Treetop Walk, funded by the Borman family, adds a half-mile of elevated pathway connecting the tower to the pedestrian bridge, with views over the Missouri River, the surrounding woodland, and the Omaha skyline.
The Charles E. Larkin Pier, also part of this same build-out, is already finished. The city's own announcement for the September 19 opening describes it as recently completed, which means the piece of River's Edge most people assumed was still under construction has quietly already been done for a while.
Why the confusion exists
None of this happened through a bond or a tax increase. The nonprofit Southwest Iowa Nonprofit for Collective Impact, known locally as SINC, has run the fundraising for this entire phase of River's Edge, and the city has been explicit that tax increases aren't part of the funding plan. The estimated $50 million budget for this phase came entirely from private donors, with the Iowa West Foundation providing a $16.5 million lead gift. In a report by WOWT, SINC president and CEO Pete Tulipana said:
"The caving and the climbing wall are going to be very unique attractions to our region."
That quote, and the ribbon-cutting energy around it, is where the confusion starts. When a project this visible finally opens, it's easy to assume the whole vision is done. It isn't. The city's own long-range plan for River's Edge separates what just opened from what comes next, and the difference in timeline is significant enough that it's worth laying out plainly.
| This Phase (Opening Now) | Next Phase (Still Coming) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it includes | Adventure Tower, Treetop Walk, Larkin Pier | Dog park, second playground, donor plaza |
| Funding status | Fully raised, private donors | Council briefed in February 2026, not yet built |
| Location | Confirmed, adjacent to Bob Kerrey Bridge | Playground sited near River Park by Broadmoor; dog park location still under city review |
| Target completion | September 19, 2026 | 2027 |
The playground for this next phase is planned for the area north of Interstate 480, next to the River Park by Broadmoor apartment complex, and city officials have described it as a destination playground with features not currently found anywhere else in Council Bluffs, including a dedicated fitness zone for kids. The dog park was pitched for a nearby lot north of I-480, but as of the February 2026 council presentation, the city and SINC were still weighing alternate locations to keep it out of the flood zone. If you've been holding off on a River's Edge dog park visit, there isn't one yet to hold off on. It's still in the location-scouting stage.
What's already walkable right now
While the tower gets the headline, it's opening into a stretch of riverfront that already has a full evening's worth of things to do within a few minutes of each other. If you're planning a visit for opening weekend or any weekend after, here's what's already up and running nearby:
- Guy Fieri's Kitchen + Bar, inside Harrah's Council Bluffs, serves breakfast through late night with a bar that looks out over Stir Cove and the Omaha skyline. Late-night service runs until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and the menu leans into the usual Fieri signatures like Trash Can Nachos and a Wagyu burger.
- Stir Cove, the outdoor amphitheater at Harrah's, has a concert stretch running right through the tower's opening weekend, including Russell Dickerson on September 11 and Chance the Rapper on October 2.
- Breaking Benjamin, Chevelle, and STARSET play the Mid-America Center on September 20, the day after the tower opens.
- Forever Simon & Garfunkel, a tribute show, plays the Arts Center at Iowa Western's Frank Fauble Theater on September 13.
- Belle's Play Garden, the Missouri River-themed playground at River's Edge with its 15-foot pelican slide, has been open since 2021 if you've got younger kids who aren't ready for a climbing wall yet.
None of this required the tower to open. It was already here. What changes this month is that the riverfront finally has a reason to pull people north of the pedestrian bridge instead of just south toward the casino and Stir Cove.
What this actually means for your fall
If you've been waiting for River's Edge to be "done" before you plan a visit, September 19 is close, but it's not the finish line. The tower, the treetop walk, and the pier give you a real, finished attraction this month, one that didn't exist a year ago and required a decade of planning and construction delays from flooding to get here. That part is done.
The dog park and the second playground are a separate project with a separate timeline, and pinning down exactly when they'll be finished is harder than it looks, because as of earlier this year the dog park didn't even have a settled address. If you're the kind of resident who's been telling out-of-town family "there's a dog park coming to the riverfront," it's worth updating that to "eventually," because 2027 is the target and even that depends on where the city and SINC land on siting it outside the flood zone.
For now, the honest version of River's Edge in the fall of 2026 is this: a genuinely new, genuinely finished vertical attraction with views most of Council Bluffs hasn't had access to before, sitting inside a riverfront district that already had good food and a full concert calendar. The rest of the plan is still on paper, and it's fine to enjoy what's actually built without waiting on what isn't.
If you're already calling Council Bluffs home and want to talk about what's happening in the neighborhoods around River's Edge, or you're weighing a move here and want someone who knows both sides of the river, Robin Philips would love to help. Let's Connect.
