(The grassy west half of Junction Plaza Park, just before the dedication ceremony)
ORIGINAL 5:35 PM REPORT: Quite the crowd at the corner of 42nd and Alaska, and the event is about to start, ceremonial ribbon-cutting at all. Lots of Junction luminaries are here – and other parks supporters – plus City Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw and Tom Rasmussen, present and past chairs of the council’s Parks Committee, deputy Parks Superintendent Eric Friedli, and Parks Board members including chair Jackie Ramels of Alki.

Todd Carden of Elliott Bay Brewery Pub is opening the ceremony, recalling how the vision dates back a decade, and how creating the park has been a true public-private partnership. 5:47 PM: Carden has just declared the park open – after the ribbon-cutting, and a series of short speeches – here’s our video of the ribboncutting:

With the big scissors, that’s Erica Karlovits, president of the Junction Neighborhood Organization, and Susan Melrose, executive director of the West Seattle Junction Association, who co-chaired the final push for park completion. (Karlovits and Melrose walked away from the stage cheering, “It’s dedicated!” Right about this time last year, they were still collecting donations – in jars and barrels at West Seattle Summer Fest.) The young helper in the video is Mia Presser, daughter of Junction-based TouchTech Systems proprietor Brian Presser.

6:01 PM: Just talked with Steve and Sharon Huling – there’s a plaque in the “performance area” on the north side of the park bearing the inscription “The Huling Family/2010” – it’s in this photo with the Hulings and son Grant:

And of course, we talked about the forthcoming Trader Joe’s on one of his sites in The Triangle – we’d spoken to him shortly after the company made the official announcement earlier this month. (Steve Huling also tells us that brother Tom Huling and Tom’s wife Lori wanted to be there too to celebrate the park’s opening, but they’re on vacation.)

Meantime, violinist Pasquale Santos is playing “Don’t Stop Believing,” and that is a fitting anthem for the West Seattleites who worked so long and hard to make this park a reality.

(6:48 pm note – Event’s over, but we’ll be adding more photos and video!)

<(From left, Sharon, Marcie, Marie, Jane, Kyle and Joan from West Seattle’s Endolyne Garden Club last Saturday)
One week after the sun-splashed planting party in which volunteers like the group above helped place 1,000 native plants at Junction Plaza Park, the city has sent out another reminder (see it here) that the park dedication (first announced last month) is coming up in 10 days – 5:30 pm June 29th, one week from Tuesday. Beyond the basics in the announcement, we asked the Parks Department if there’s word yet on who will join in the dedication event, along with the West Seattleites who have worked so hard (like the planting volunteers!) to make it reality. Here’s the plan so far, according to Parks’ Karen O’Connor: The city will be represented by Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, who chairs the Parks and Seattle Center Committee, and Deputy Parks Superintendent Eric Friedli; the music they’re promising will be provided by popular Seattle violinist Pasquale Santos. Friends of Junction Plaza Park hopes the weeknight evening scheduling means more people can come celebrate the long-awaited completion of the park (northwest corner of 42nd/Alaska).

(Photo credits: Top, courtesy Endolyne Garden Club; bottom, WSB photo taken last Sunday)

Three dates to share for The Junction: First, as shared by Friends of Junction Plaza Park, June 5 is set for the start of a community planting party after construction concludes at the new park at 42nd/Alaska – and June 29th is the date currently set for the park to be dedicated. From West Seattle Junction Association‘s Susan Melrose:

We’ve decided to have it on a weekday evening to make it easy to attend – after work, before dinner, and not interfering with weekend plans. The gathering will commence at 5:30; we’ll have some speakers, officially open the park and enjoy what we hope will be a lovely summer evening.

The park is slated to be complete weeks prior, but we’ll allow time for the concrete to cure and fresh roots to take hold. The grass area will remain closed beyond the park’s dedication to ensure a strong lawn, but will be open for Summer Fest on July 9, 10 and 11.

We’re also having a community planting day on Saturday, June 5 and maybe 6th. We have almost 800 native plants to install in the park and we anticipate having two planting shifts on the 5th. About 40 volunteers will be needed and if you’d like to sign up or have questions, please email susan@wsjunction.org.

Also, a new event’s planned in The Junction – WSJA is presenting a Health Fair on June 13th, 10 am-2 pm – you’ll get to meet Junction health-care providers including Westside Dermatology (WSB sponsor); more details to come.

Thanks to Brian from TouchTech Systems in The Junction for sharing that photo of the intensifying work at the site of Junction Plaza Park, where groundbreaking earlier this month followed more than a few long years of work to finish fundraising and designing it. The Parks Department has said it expects to have the park done by early June.

From left, Susan Melrose from the West Seattle Junction Association (WSB sponsor) and Cari Day Day wielded the shovels this morning at the ceremonial groundbreaking for Junction Plaza Park (northwest corner of 42nd/Alaska). The park will have both grass and paved areas, as well as numerous native plantings, and work should be done by June. Here’s a rendering from last fall, showing landscape architect Karen Kiest‘s design:

As soon as the park’s done, there will be a special community event to help with plantings, and everyone’s encouraged to join in – to get on the notification list for that, e-mail Melrose at susan@wsjunction.org. ADDED 1:12 PM: Early this morning, a few hours before the groundbreaking, the park contractor was out taking soil samples; Christopher Boffoli spotted the work and got this photograph:

After the ceremony, Seattle Parks project manager Gary Gibbons explained in a short interview what the sampling is for, and what happens next:

As we’ve been reporting over the past year-plus (here’s our coverage archive), while Junction Plaza Park has been in the works for more than a few years – the site was purchased in 2005 – one last major community-contribution push involving WSJA and the Junction Neighborhood Organization helped make the long-held dream a reality.

Just confirmed with the Parks Department that Monday will mark the official groundbreaking at Junction Plaza Park – two weeks after Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher announced at a Parks Board meeting that the construction contract was finalized. The pocket park on the northwest corner of 42nd/Alaska in The Junction has been years in the making; the city bought the site five years ago with ProParks Levy money, but it languished without construction funding until a new community effort revved into high gear a little more than a year ago. You can see the park design at its official city webpage; it’s scheduled to be finished in time for summer events in The Junction, including West Seattle Summer Fest. ADDED 5:49 PM: The West Seattle Junction Association has issued an official announcement of Monday’s groundbreaking, which includes a 10 am ceremony. Read on:Read More

(Junction Plaza Park design from last round of meetings in 2009)
We’re at the Seattle Parks Board meeting downtown – where the big news will be a briefing on the Parks budget situation, which we were just told in a pre-meeting conversation with board leaders, is a lot worse than you might think. One big problem: No money to maintain the new parks facilities funded by the Parks and Green Spaces Levy, and barely enough to maintain what the department has now. But that’s not the reason we’re writing this in-progress update: Speaking of new parks (though this was NOT in that levy), Superintendent Tim Gallagher has just told the Parks Board that a contract has been issued for construction of Junction Plaza Park, and work should start soon, with completion in time for “several summer events.” (The park is on the northwest corner of Alaska/42nd.) We’ll be tracking that; meantime, we’ll have the full Parks Board story later after the budget briefing.

The final public meeting about Junction Plaza Park (mentioned in our coverage of Tuesday’s Junction Neighborhood Organization meeting) is now officially scheduled: 6:30 pm October 5 at the Senior Center of West Seattle. Topics will include what the Parks Department announcement describes as “plant selection and minor design elements.”

Days after West Seattle’s newest park was dedicated in Morgan Junction, there’s big news for the push to finish the long-awaited park in The (Alaska) Junction: Susan Melrose of the West Seattle Junction Association tells WSB they’ve just received word they’re getting the $98,000 city Neighborhood Matching Fund grant sought to help complete Junction Plaza Park. That brings the money gathered for the project (updated)to $295,000 – the current design will cost about $350,000 to build. (For comparison, the just-finished Morgan Junction Park cost almost half a million dollars.) Another major fundraising push will come during next month’s West Seattle Summer Fest (WSB sponsor), with a beer garden set up at the site, proceeds benefiting Friends of Junction Plaza Park. The group also will be participating in this Saturday’s Junction Clean and Green event, which will be centered at the new Genesee P-Patch (as reported here last month) — with Mayor Nickels scheduled to appear — but also will include a Junction Adopt-A-Street cleanup with work at the 42nd/Alaska park site (just a few blocks south of the P-Patch). It’s hoped that the park project will be ready for groundbreaking this fall. It’ll also be a beneficiary of the West Seattle Garden Tour coming up July 19 (tickets on sale now). ADDED 4:09 PM: A Friends of Junction Place Park meeting also has been announced, for 6 pm July 6, Senior Center of West Seattle.

First of our reports from last night’s meeting of the Southwest District Council (WSB sponsor) — more progress in the final stage of transforming the grassy site on the northwest corner of 42nd/Alaska into Junction Plaza Park. Erica Karlovits of the Junction Neighborhood Association and Susan Melrose of the West Seattle Junction Association had updates for the SWDC: First, Friends of Junction Plaza Park has applied for $98,000 in city matching-funds money, and has submitted commitments of $98,000 in donated money and time as the potential match, with more than 155 organizations and individuals represented among the pledges. The long-in-the-works park project needs $350,000 total for completion. It is one of two “large projects” submitted from the Southwest District for city grant consideration – the other is the Duwamish Longhouse Ecological Arts Project, seeking $100,000. If all the funding is secured, park construction could start this fall and be done by year’s end. There’s talk of a potential park-fundraiser beer garden in the park area during West Seattle Summer Fest, which is coming up July 10-12. If you want to help with the Junction Plaza Park effort, contact info is on the official website at friendsofjunctionplazapark.org. (Previous coverage of the park-development effort is archived here, newest to oldest.)

Quick update from the Junction Neighborhood Organization meeting that’s under way right now: A new website for the project has just gone live – you can see it at friendsofjunctionplazapark.org. That’s where you can get the forms to pledge volunteer time, which is the big push right now – JuNO president Erica Karlovits, who’s co-chairing Friends of Junction Plaza Park, says the first West Seattle Farmers’ Market tabling this past Sunday collected “two pages of volunteer pledges.” They’re trying to gather as many pledges as possible before the early April deadline to apply for a city $100,000 Neighborhood Matching Fund grant to apply toward the $350,000 cost of finishing the park (on the northwest corner of Alaska/42nd in The Junction). Susan Melrose of the West Seattle Junction Association is here too and says that if fundraising and all else goes well this year, construction could start early next year.