West Seattle, Washington
14 Saturday
Thanks to Jeff Hogan for the video of Seattle Police motorcycle officers riding in Lincoln Park this morning. We checked with SPD media relations to see if there was a particular occasion or operation; just a training ride for the Traffic Enforcement Unit (which is based downtown), they tell us. Not the first time they’ve been seen in the park – WSB archives include these reader photos from 2012.
(WSB photo, taken this morning)(WSB photo from last week)
As noted here last week, the EC Hughes Playground overhaul project is gearing up (along with others in West Seattle). This is the playground at 2805 SW Holden, same park as the wading pool, although that’s not part of the project. Two ways to let Parks know what you’d like to see in the project:
#1 – Answer this new online survey
#2 – Join Parks staff for two meetings – first, to talk about the new play area’s design, 5-6:30 pm Thursday, April 19th, at Southwest Teen Life Center (2801 SW Thistle); second, to review the “preferred design,” 1-3 pm Wednesday, June 13th, at the park. Kids welcome at both meetings – the playground users have the best input!
The play equipment is being replaced because of damage discovered in an inspection that followed the discovery of wood damage that forced the Lincoln Park South Play Area structure (which is ) to be closed last year.
Thanks to Martha Sidlo from the Rotary Club of West Seattle for the photos and report:
This morning, several West Seattle Rotarians held a landscaping cleanup at the Rotary totem pole park on 35th Avenue SW, next to the golf course. [Read the park and pole’s history here.]
Seattle Parks and Recreation helped by providing tools and wood chips for the project.
Thanks to everyone who’s been sharing their stories of community cleanups and other projects! editor@wsb.blackfin.biz any time.
11:41 AM: A hectic and happy morning at Seattle Parks community centers all over the city – including five in West Seattle – that hosted egg hunts. Our first photos are from Southwest TLC, which held its hunt on the big field to the west where Denny International Middle School used to be. Hunters were separated by age group, and each area had one special egg that could be redeemed for a prize basket. Here’s our video looking eastward over the field at the peak of the hunt:
Egg hunt at @SeattleParks Southwest TLC – actually on the big field to the west where Denny IMS used to be. pic.twitter.com/ft9wJ6LmDS
— West Seattle Blog (@westseattleblog) March 31, 2018
Anybody who had a question didn’t have to wonder who to ask – just look for the bunny ears!
Meantime, on the north end of the peninsula, we also had a photographer at Hiawatha Community Center. Egg-hunters of all ages there too:
High fives for the bunny:
Easter-time is known for hats – these egg-hunters made creative choices:
If you have a photo from any of the other community centers that had hunts this morning – Alki, Delridge, High Point – we would love to add a few! editor@wsb.blackfin.biz – thank you!
ADDED 2:11 PM: Thanks to Crystal for a photo from the High Point hunt:
She explains, “This is Gaby. She got an Easter basket when she found a golden ticket in one of the eggs :)”
Which type of play equipment would you like to see at Puget Ridge Playground (6029 21st SW) when it’s renovated? The images above are from the a Seattle Parks survey that just opened – and you’ll also be able to talk about it at the newly announced community meeting, 5-6:30 pm Monday, April 16th. This is one of three local park playgrounds that’ll be overhauled in the months ahead.
(WSB photo, taken this morning)
Thanks to Kenneth for the tip that the sign’s up at EC Hughes Playground (2805 SW Holden), where play-area renovations are starting soon. We first reported last fall that Seattle Parks decided the play equipment needed to be replaced, after inspections done following the discovery of wood damage in a similar structure at Lincoln Park South Play Area.
The sign does not mean work at EC Hughes is starting soon, though. We checked in with Parks’ project point person Libby Hughes, who tells WSB that two public-outreach meetings are planned, in April and June (dates/times/locations soon), and construction is expected to start this fall, “after school starts.” The goal of the project, she says, is “to renovate the play equipment with structures that meet current safety standards and are accessible to children of all abilities, ages 2-5 and 5-12 years, and to make some ADA improvements for access to the play area.” The EC Hughes wading pool is not involved in the project. Hughes adds that she’s also working on yet another play-area renovation in West Seattle, “similar scope and timeline” – Puget Ridge Playground (6029 21st SW). More details on that one soon.
We’ve been reporting on the planning process for the first of three “landbanked” park sites in West Seattle awaiting development, the one on 40th SW in the West Seattle Junction. We’ve been asked, what about the other two?
(WSB photos, both taken this morning)
They are, above, the Morgan Junction Park expansion site, north of the existing park, where the city demolished a commercial building in 2016. And below, the 48th SW/SW Charlestown site, which remains a meadow behind a low fence:
Both will go through a planning process, and we have an update on the city’s timeline – official planning for Morgan will start in the second quarter of this year, and for 48th/Charlestown, in the third quarter. That’s according to page 18 in this slide deck prepared for a briefing to be given to the City Council’s Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee at 2 pm tomorrow. The slide also lists the levy funding planned for developing those (and other) landbanked sites into parks – $1.4 million for Morgan and $1.2 million for 48th/Charlestown.
FRIDAY: Just heard from Southwest Pool – it was originally expected to reopen tomorrow after almost three weeks of maintenance, but they won’t be ready to go because it’s not heating up fast enough for the water to be warm enough for Saturday swimming. They’re hoping to be able to reopen on Sunday, instead. (We’ll check in again tomorrow.)
2:26 PM SUNDAY: As noted in comments, we’ve verified that the pool did reopen today. (Here’s its schedule.)
Half a year after firefighters moved out of the temporary Station 32 set up on the future West Seattle Junction park site on 40th SW between SW Alaska and SW Edmunds, the tents that housed their apparatus are being taken down. Justin from Sound & Fog next door caught the unveiling-esque scene above as the canvas was taken off one of the wire frames today. Crews were based there for two years, having been moved out of the old Station 32 months before construction started on the new one, which opened last summer; the tents had gone up three years ago.
We’ll be checking with the city to see where they’ll be used next.
P.S. Design work continues for the future park, which is to be built next year. The city has posted results of last month’s online survey, and Option 2 was the most popular among the 275 respondents (see all 3 options here). One more public meeting is planned for the project; no date yet.
If you missed the first “project development” meeting tonight for this year’s Your Voice, Your Choice process to figure out which of hundreds of community-suggested park/street projects will get a share of $3 million … you have four more to choose from. Participants at each meeting are evaluating a specific group of projects – different at every meeting – as grouped and color-coded on this map. Next one is tomorrow night in South Park (6 pm at SP Community Center, 8319 8th Ave. S.), to review the suggestions for that area; then there are three more meetings in West Seattle, one daytime and two nighttime (all listed here). And if you can’t make it to the meeting for the project area you’d like to evaluate, the city says you can access the project lists for all areas of each district (ours is D-1) at any meeting in that district. After this round, the next step is voting, with online and in-person opportunities starting in June.
Looking for classes, lessons, camps, special events? The city’s out with the new brochure for area community centers – Alki (5817 SW Stevens), Delridge (4501 Delridge Way SW), Hiawatha (2700 California SW), High Point (6920 34th SW), South Park (8319 8th Ave. S.) – plus Southwest Pool and Teen Life Center (2801 SW Thistle). Among many other listings, the brochure includes the list of centers where the annual egg hunt will be happening on Saturday, March 31st. You can see the brochure here in PDF.
If you haven’t been to West Seattle’s forested parks since Sunday’s windstorm, be aware you might encounter toppled trees. Kersti Muul shared these views of a big grand fir downed at Lincoln Park, “west across the field from the bluff trail, just next to the beech grove.”
Thanks also to Hallidie for word of a big Douglas fir down along the path uphill from Colman Pool, with several alders taken down too. And a commenter mentioned trees downed in Schmitz Park as well. We have a message out to Seattle Parks to ask if their arborists have yet assessed tree damage/loss citywide as a result of the storm.
West Seattle’s only city-run year-round pool has an almost-three-week maintenance closure coming up. Seattle Parks says Southwest Pool (2801 SW Thistle) will close starting next Monday (February 26th) through Friday, March 16th. During the closure, Parks says, “Crews will install an energy efficient circulation pump in addition to normal upkeep. The Teen Life Center gym and multi-purpose room floors will also be refinished.”
Seattle Parks wants to be sure you know that Hiawatha Community Center has a week-plus closure ahead: Saturday (February 17th) through Sunday, February 25th, Hiawatha is scheduled to shut down so its floors can be refinished. (Note that ALL city-run community centers, and many other Parks facilities, will be closed Monday for Presidents Day – full list here.)
Six weeks after the City Council signed off on the deal for Bruce Stotler‘s Schmitz Park-neighboring property, so that it’ll eventually become part of the park, he signed the final paperwork in a small ceremony at the Southwest Seattle Historical Society‘s Log House Museum headquarters.
With Stotler in the celebratory photo above are, from left, Chip Nevins from Seattle Parks, Vicki Schmitz-Block, former City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen – who had worked for years to help make it happen – and SWSHS vice president Nancy Sorensen. The photos are courtesy of SWSHS executive director Jeff McCord, who says, “The Southwest Seattle Historical Society was pleased to host the signing at the Log House Museum, and we believe property owner Bruce Stotler is doing a great thing for our West Seattle community!” Backstory is in our previous coverage – here, here, and here.
For the second year, the city invited park/street grant ideas through what it calls “Your Voice, Your Choice” – and citywide, it’s just been announced, 1,000 new ideas came in, in addition to almost 400 ideas getting rolled over from last year. Next up, you’re invited to “project development” meetings to help narrow the list down (which is also being done right now through city staff’s feasibility reviewing). Here’s where and when the meetings are in District 1 (West Seattle/South Park):
February 26, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
South Seattle College, Chan Education Center, Rm 202 – 6000 16th Ave SWFebruary 27, 6 – 8 pm
South Park Community Center – 8319 8th Ave SMarch 12, 10 am – 12 pm
Southwest Youth and Family Services – 4555 Delridge Way SWMarch 14, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
West Seattle Branch Library – 2306 42nd Ave SWMarch 26, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Southwest Branch Library – 9010 35th Ave SW
The “project development” process is explained here. After that, there’ll be a list you can vote on, so stay tuned for that in June-July. The citywide fund this year for all projects totals $3 million.
That’s Seattle Channel video of this past week’s meeting of the Seattle Board of Park Commissioners, which included a briefing on a subject of West Seattle interest – a study focusing on the future of the city’s public golf courses/facilities, including the West Seattle Golf Course. As explained in the briefing – which starts 44 minutes into the video – the city’s golf program not only no longer generates extra revenue for Seattle Parks, something it did for a long time, but isn’t even covering its expenses. So the city has commissioned a study to help figure out the public golf facilities’ future.
The study is under way, and at Thursday night’s meeting, the Parks Board got an update on how it’s going so far. The briefing document provided to the board included the following findings from early stakeholder interviews and market research:
Preliminary Feedback from Stakeholder Interviews Conducted to Date and Market Research Findings
Seattle’s municipal golf courses provide benefits beyond the game of golf.
o Public golf is misunderstood and stereotyped in a way that is not consistent with the demographics of who plays at municipal public golf-courses. Nationally, 70% of all rounds nationally are played at public golf courses, not private clubs.
o Expanding access and creating new opportunities to experience golf and Seattle’s public golf facilities is desired.
o There are opportunities to build partnerships and to use Seattle’s municipal golf courses to meet the needs of the growing Seattle population who need open space and recreation opportunities within the City. (Seattle’s population grew by 21,000 from July 1, 2015 – July 1, 2016)
The golf program is not meeting financial policy targets.
o The Golf Master Plan strategy has not been implemented as planned and has contributed to revenue challenges.
o Rising labor and utility expenses in the City were not anticipated in budget projections.
Preliminary Market Research Findings:
o A 2007 State golf economic analysis reported that of 280 courses in the state at that time, 219 were public, and 47 were municipally-owned.
o Nationally interest in golf is declining, especially among millennials; however, golf in Seattle and the State of Washington exceeds the national participation rate. (7% of total population nationally, 10 12% in Seattle.)
o Seattle golf participation rates are in the mid-range of popular recreational activities: walking, picnics, bike riding are the most popular and rugby, surfboarding, lacrosse the least popular.
o The 2017 Parks and Recreation Study conducted by EMC found that 43 percent thought the City should spend less on golf, although the survey did not provided information on the revenue contributed by the golf courses to the City Parks and Recreation Budget.
o Nationally, minority participation is about 20%, primarily among Hispanic and Latino Americans. Seattle has not tracked minority participation rates at its courses; however, the first African American and Asian American golf players clubs in the State were founded at Jefferson and are still active, and First Tee and Bogey Bear programs have successfully introduced the sport to diverse youth in Seattle.
o Seattle’s female participation at its golf courses ranges between 10-17 percent while nationally the average is 23 percent.
You can see the full document from the board briefing here. Beyond the discussion at the Parks Board meeting, it does not appear there are any open feedback opportunities related to the study – and in fact, the board was told “it’s not a big public-outreach (opportunity).” They plan more stakeholder interviews later this month and a “focus group” in March, with the final report to be presented in May, including three potential “scenarios” for the future of the city’s golf program.
(From February 2017 presentation about this project and others – obviously the timeline has slid)
11:47 AM: One year ago, we reported on Seattle Parks‘ plans to renovate Don Armeni Boat Ramp with two new floating ramps. The expected start date was listed at the time as last fall, but it hasn’t happened yet. Parks was pursuing a grant to cover part of the $1.5 million cost, and now there’s word the city is getting it – a mayoral announcement on Wednesday mentioned the $374,950 state grant for the project. We’re checking with Parks to get the new timeline.
ADDED 1:57 PM: Christina Hirsch with Parks tells WSB, “Due to the uncertainty with funding over the last year, design and permitting was put on hold. We will be restarting our efforts in March 2018 once agreements are in place and will get a status update out in the second quarter of 2018.”
Whether or not you made it to one of Thursday’s open houses for the new West Seattle Junction park (4700 block of 40th SW), you might be interested in the next step – the online survey you can use to see and choose which of the three designs you like best. Just got word from Seattle Parks‘ Karimah Edwards that the survey is now available online. The survey page also gives you a closeup of each design option, and has links to the “virtual tours” – Option 1 is here, Option 2 is here, Option 3 is here. The park will be on two-thirds of an acre that the city bought five years ago and “landbanked” until now; $1.9 million from Park District levy proceeds is budgeted to develop it, with construction expected next year.
That’s Karimah Edwards from Seattle Parks, holding a tablet to show us the “fly-through” renderings of the three design concepts for the future West Seattle Junction park in the 4700 block of 40th SW [map]. We checked them out at the first of today/tonight’s two “open house” sessions, to show you what you’ll find if you stop by the site tonight for the second drop-in event, 5:30-7 pm. You’ll see the three concepts on easels, too:
GGLO worked with Seattle Parks to create the concepts, using the 10 features that were most popular in last year’s feedback (hundreds of people took the online survey and/or visited the drop-in Farmers’ Market meeting). All three concepts have some things in common – like lots of seating, and garden-style plantings – but otherwise, some dramatically different central features, like a boardwalk in Option 2 and a 6-foot climbing wall in Option 3. The open-house location, by the way, is at the site but fully covered, inside the big tent that was used as a temporary fire station there for more than a year, so don’t worry about the weather:
Refreshments are from the indie coffee and wine bar that’s literally next door to the park, Sound and Fog:
If you just can’t stop by tonight either, a survey will be available online soon – watch the official project website for that. The city bought the 2/3-acre park site five years ago for $1.4 million and has had it “landbanked” until money ($1.9 million) was available for developing it; that’s coming from the Seattle Park District levy.
(Seattle Parks’ Pamela Alspaugh with two young meeting-goers)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
If you’re going to design a playground, you might as well get young potential users involved.
That’s why Seattle Parks made a point of encouraging families to come to the design meetings for the new Lincoln Park South Play Area – a project accelerated by the termite damage that led to the sudden closure and removal of play equipment there last summer.
The second and final meeting, last night at The Kenney, resulted in some clear favorites – an orca climbing structure, for example, as part of the marine theme that resulted from an attendee’s suggestion at the first meeting (WSB coverage here).
But even if you weren’t there, you still have time to offer your opinions too:
Two notes about businesses in city parks:
CALL FOR CONCESSIONS: Looking ahead to summer, the city wants to be sure you know about this, in case you operate – or know of – a business that might qualify:
Seattle Parks and Recreation is seeking proposals for seasonal partners to operate food service, recreational activities, and group fitness concessions in various park locations throughout Seattle. Locations vary with sites appropriate for carts, food trucks and other self-contained service businesses. Proposals are due by March 16. Details here.
Among the documents you’ll find on that page is this one that includes specific locations open to food concessions this summer – including, in West Seattle, two at Alki Beach and one at Lincoln Park.
PRESCHOOL MEETING: We first reported last month that another city park in West Seattle will be the site of an “outdoor preschool” starting this fall. One has been operating at Camp Long, and now Parks is also opening Lincoln Park to a preschool program. A new operator called Roots and Sky Nature School is expected to get the contract, Parks confirmed in early January, and a meeting is planned 6-7 pm this Friday (January 26th) at Dakota Place Park (4304 SW Dakota) for anyone with questions about the plan.
Last week we previewed an MLK Day work party for the forest at Fairmount Playfield … and forest steward Christine Deppe just sent us that photo of everyone who showed up on Monday!
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