Members of the city parks board toured Homestead Park Tuesday, together with city staff, to get a real-world sense of the site.
Photo by Michael Whitney
SNOHOMISH — Members of the city’s park board hiked the future Homestead Park space last week to get a sense of the site. It will continue its conversation at a meeting Jan. 22 that starts at 6 p.m. in the Carnegie Building.
The city intends to turn the former 10-acre working cattle farm at 2000 Ludwig Road into a destination park on Snohomish’s west side.
The plan retains the rolling hills and as much of its natural groves of tall timber.
An early concept now being refined added a small children’s playground, a disc golf course and a natural walking trail. The trail would use an existing path between the tall cedars and spruce, city project coordinator Siobhan Waltman said.
A chart in the agenda for the Jan. 22 parks board meeting says the city won’t consider a dog park or a pump track for cyclists because it is protecting the site’s critical areas and wetland buffers. The two wetlands on-site will be kept.
Creaking open the door of the historic barn on-site, the hard floor had a pile of feces and some skeletonized animal remnants, a Tribune reporter saw. It’s thought the barn has bats.
The city wants to salvage part of the barn for re-use, but rehabilitating the whole barn, though, would be tough to bring it up to code for public use, city employees said.
The house on-site would be demolished to make way for Homestead Park’s parking lot.
Power transmission lines run on the south side of the property. City employees said the existing gravel lot must be kept empty for the power company.
Park board member Alice Armstrong noted how quiet the site is and how pure the air is. The hills give views of the area’s mountains.
There’s “some nice old growth” in the back, project manager Brennan Collins said.
Park designer Tim Slazinik from the consultant firm GGLO has been here before. He came on the tour to hear what park board members had to say. Park of his job will be to sketch out concepts for the park.
The site’s timber fits so much with the Pacific Northwest, Slazinik said.
A public survey about the park’s design just concluded Jan. 17. Results show people particularly like the concepts of a playground, open space and walking trails.
The city obtained Homestead Park in 2013. It used its parks impact fee, real estate excise taxes and the general fund to make the $699,000 purchase.
The city’s wider parks plan outlines Homestead Park would get playgrounds and features around 2028.
A 2021 idea to allow multi-family housing on a portion of the 10 acres to encourage affordable housing was ultimately shelved.
