FOLLOWUP: Morgan Junction Park ‘skate dot’ money still in budget City Council will finalize this afternoon

The money that community group Morgan Junction All-Wheels Area fought to get into next year’s city budget is still there and on its way to final approval when the City Council meets at 1 pm for its final round of votes.

(Grindline’s schematic for proposed ‘skate dot’ at Morgan Junction Park site)

That’s $700,000 that Parks said would be required to cover the cost of a “skate dot” area when the Morgan Junction Park expansion is built – otherwise, despite earlier city commitments, it wasn’t going to get built unless MJAWA managed to raise that much, in addition to the grant money and countless volunteer work they’d already put into the project. Josh Radick from MJAWA tells WSB they’re expecting to hear what’s next from Parks in January (though they’d requested monthly updates, starting sooner). District 1 Councilmember Rob Saka sponsored this budget amendment; you can see the final list of council budget changes – including who sponsored them and whether they passed – by going here. (Saka’s other West Seattle amendments in the budget about to be finalized include $150,000 for Admiral pedestrian improvements, $250,000 for late-night teen programs at High Point Community Center, $250,000 for North Delridge businesses facing light-rail displacement, $500,000 that could be earmarked for the Highland Park Improvement Club rebuild, $100,000 that could be earmarked for A Cleaner Alki‘s work, $1 million for the “public market” project African Community Housing and Development plans at 9th/Henderson, plus items without costs attached, such as a study of noise enforcement and a policy review about unpermitted vending (both particularly Alki-relevant). If you have any last words for the council regarding the budget, the agenda for the 1 pm meeting includes commenting info.

Jay November 21, 2025 (1:43 pm)

The politics around this makes me so sad. Why can’t Parks hire a professional design-build firm that specializes in this type of project? Let an expert hire and manage the environmental mitigation and get the site efficiently prepped for the park design. It doesn’t have to be like this. This type of project, even with the environmental contamination, is just a run of the mill project for specialist firms that could knock it out in less than a year. Just hire Grindline, Gravity Logic, or any number of other firms and get it done for a fraction of what they’re projecting. This is an easy and inexpensive project even with the environmental remediation. Other cities have no problem doing projects like this, including other cities in our region. It’s just like the playground projects. How are we so different from other cities that we just can’t handle basic procurement and project management? We’ve normalized and accepted the Seattle Process, but it’s not okay. The way our city approaches construction is completely broken and backwards. $7.5 million for a skate dot… you could build a 3-4 story apartment complex with retail on the ground floor on this site for that much money. It feels like we’ve just given up on the future of our city.

greybeard November 21, 2025 (1:55 pm)

Hopefully this passes. Grindline has done a great job building skateparks in the community and the kids will love it. Looks like a simple course to practice on too.