Just three days after the final design meeting for the new West Seattle Reservoir/Westcrest Park expansion, two updates tonight. First one goes with the video above, which was shared by Highland Park’s Deanie Schwarz, who explains:

At about four-thirty this morning, I was awakened by what sounded like giant chupacabra nails grating across a blackboard. I flew to my window, and what did I see? No chuppie, but the mammoth digger used for the deep pilings on the reservoir project.

The Mid-Mountain company, the behemoth’s owner, had till six AM to have the big digger out of the city limits. The trailer awaiting the big noisy tractor to sluggishly amble its way down a hill on Cloverdale was itself too lumbering and unwieldy to negotiate a loading location closer to the park. When the same trailer delivered the Big Digger to Westcrest two years ago to begin West Seattle’s own Big Dig, a bit of trouble ensued on that tiny hill wherein the trailer, to put it briefly, got kind of stuck. It was a problem the trailer driver and crew did not want to revisit, so today’s exit was on the flats of 9th Ave.

So, as the Highland Park neighborhood near Westcrest bid loud and amazing earthmovers adieu, the summer sun rose at dawn on a horizon, quiet, serene and awaiting a new era of a very lovely and much-improved park.

Speaking of said park …

NOTE #2: The newly unveiled design for the 20 added acres of parkland at the newly covered (and decreased-in-size) reservoir – shown in our story on Saturday’s community meeting – goes before the Seattle Design Commission this Thursday. The city-appointed, volunteer board reviews major projects like this, and is scheduled to hear at 10 am Thursday from project manager Susanne Friedman and landscape architect Mark Brands. The SDC meets in the Boards and Commissions Room at City Hall downtown (map), and the meeting is open to the public. P.S. We didn’t include this in Saturday’s report, but here’s the concept for the new parkland’s art project, unveiled by kinetic sculpture artist David Boyer at the meeting: