By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
More than a year has passed since Seattle Parks announced that planning had resumed for one of its three long-“landbanked” West Seattle park sites, the one at 48th/Charlestown [map]. At the time, Parks said it expected the park to be finished by mid-2025.
That’s a few months away, and the project hasn’t even gone out to bid yet. But it’s not far from that stage, a Parks manager said during an informal meeting at the site with a neighborhood resident who wants to ensure the park is built to plan by donating money and time – and hopes other neighbors will want to do the same.
First, here’s what we learned about where the project stands: You might recall the site is one of three in West Seattle that the city bought and “landbanked” as future parks more than a decade ago. As Parks’ Rhys Harrington said during the informal meeting, this project “stalled out” before the pandemic. It already had a design, resulting from community collaboration – a fairly simple “neighborhood green” with an oval of lawn, some seating, a play area for kids, a mini-stage in a raised area toward the site’s southwest corner.
It also had a larger budget. Now, Harrington said, the construction budget is $730,000, so some features – like the mini-stage – might have to be dropped. He explained that they’ll send it out to bid with some features as “additives” to the basic plan (lighting, for example). The design is being “revisited” right now so that it’ll have full documents and cost estimates within about two months.
News of that shortfall is what got neighborhood mom Jordan Colvin involved. She’s hoping community contributions and involvement can ensure the park is built to the original plan, or close to it, in part via a Neighborhood Matching Fund grant that could be available if enough money and time is donated.
She explained to WSB that her family learned about the landbanked project after moving a block from the site and “saw an opportunity to contribute to both the community and raise awareness of childhood cancer.” Working with a West Seattle artist, the Colvins plan to financially back some of the park’s components and to donate a public art piece in honor of their son, Parker, one of 16,000 children who are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States.
During the informal park meeting, Jordan also explained that after they had chosen Parker’s name, they learned it meant “guardian of parks.” So remembering him via involvement in building this park – where his 4-year-old brother will play – seemed perfect.
Exactly what and where the artwork will be in the park, that has yet to be worked out. But Jordan is hopeful that area neighbors will join her quest to ensure the park is “as great as it can be”; to ensure flexibility, Harrington said, they’ll go out to bed with some features characterized as “additives,” so they reduce the chances of base bids so high they’ll have to do a second round of bidding.
Assuming nothing like that gets in the way, Harrington said the park project could break ground this September. He explained that it’s vaulted ahead of the other two landbanked West Seattle park projects because it’s the closest to being “shovel-ready,” even though design updates are required – much of the construction is simple “concrete and earth work.”
If you are interested – or even potentially interested – in involvement with the park project, including Colvin’s quest to corral a Neighborhood Matching Fund grant for the park, you can use this form to connect with her.
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