By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
WALDPORT – Thirteen months after winning a $750,000 grant to help develop a 12-acre park in the middle of downtown, the city of Waldport is ordering the first piece of equipment for it.
The city council voted Thursday to spend $413,000 to order a 100-by-100-foot playground structure intended to be the centerpiece of the park bordered by Highway 34 and Crestline Drive.
City manager Dann Cutter told the council that Alabama-based GameTime would give the city a $220,000 discount on the structure if it was shipped by Dec. 31. The multi-colored plastic and metal structure will have 15 separate slides, 13 swings and all kinds of climbing activities.
“We made a commitment that we’re going to build a park that had the biggest possible play area and we’re going to buy the biggest one we can find,” Cutter said before the council voted unanimously to authorize the purchase.
Cutter also said the initial play equipment would be “Phase 1 and we can add on over time.” He was able to do that the day after the council meeting, getting GameTime on Friday to include an additional structure designed especially for 2- to 5-year-olds.
But, the city still needs to develop a plan and pay for the playground surface – whether artificial turf or some kind of rubberized mat – and develop a drainage system below it.
“We bought the playground but we didn’t buy the surface,” he told YachatsNews.
To control costs, Cutter said the city will need to rely on volunteers and local contractors to help construct the playground surface and then assemble the equipment. There is no timeline currently for any of that or commitments from local contractors or volunteers, but Cutter hopes the playground can be installed at least by summer.
$750,000 state grant
The city received a $750,000 from Oregon State Parks & Recreation in September 2022 and will spend $198,000 of its own money to develop Louis Southworth Park on the former site of Waldport Middle/High School.
In addition to the playground area, plans call for two to eight picnic shelters, a sports court, a hard-surface walking trail around the outside. The timber skills competition area set up for Beachcomber Days has already been moved from the park’s southwest corner to the northeast corner near Crestline Drive.
The city acquired the property in 2013 when the Lincoln County School District moved the middle and high schools out of the tsunami zone and then held a series of meetings of what to do with it. As part of an agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the only allowable use of the site is for a park or open space — no asphalt and no buildings with walls, other than restrooms.
The park will also have a bronze statue of the park’s namesake – Louis Southworth, a former enslaved man who homesteaded just upriver in the late 1800s and donated land for the area’s first school. The statue was commissioned through a $50,000 grant from Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism promotion agency.
In April the city also purchased the former elementary school gym, cafeteria and kitchen that sits along the west edge of the park for $475,000 from the Lincoln County School District using federal pandemic relief money. It hopes to someday turn it into a recreation center.
The city held a ceremonial groundbreaking July 3 at the park, but nothing visible has happened since while Cutter wrote request for proposals for parts of the park development and researched playground equipment. Last week, no councilor or member of the public asked for details about other parts of the park project, when they might be tackled and how they might be funded.
In other business last week the council:
- Approved the annexation to the city of 117 acres of recently-harvested forestland owned by John Hancock Life Insurance Co. on the east edge of the city so it can eventually build a road through it to provide emergency access to the Waldport Heights neighborhood;
- Approved the annexation of the five acres containing the Waldport water treatment plant property on Nelson Wayside to the city;
- Approved the annexation request of Daniel and Brian Serbu of Yachats of a duplex and property they own at 1255 S.W. Seabrook Lane to the city.
I would like to volunteer to help set up the park but also who would I contact regarding the future park amenities? Can I be on the council or committee for this project? Thank you.
Where do we sign up to volunteer?
I live on Seabrook lane. My neighbor was just approved for annexation to be within city limits. I am in between their duplex and the city limit. So how does that effect my home, does that annexation also make my house within the city limits?