FAQ

There will be several upcoming opportunities to provide input.Details will be posted to this page as they are available.

• Public Meeting #2 (early 2020)
• Engage Olympia online surveys
• A public site walk with the design team
• Public Meeting #3 (mid 2020)

We anticipate completing the Final Master Plan in Fall/Winter 2020. Following master plan completion staff will shift focus to applying for grants and developing the engineering design drawings and permit package. This work will take several years and construction will hopefully occur around 2025.

After the City purchased the property from the Zahn family in 2018, the City has continued to lease the fields and berry stand area to Spooner Berry Farms. It is the City’s hope that this arrangement will continue until park development is ready to proceed. Spooner Berry Farms currently operates 12 retail locations and their berry cultivation occurs primarily in other locations besides the location at 3323 Yelm Highway. 

The park project design is rooted in a listening process with the community. Ideas, needs, desires and concerns will be interwoven by the design team into three conceptual park designs that will then be shared with the community for additional feedback and refinements. Ultimately a final master plan will then be created.

To provide online input on the project and to receive an email when new information is posted please register at Engage Olympia.

To be more broadly notified of Olympia Parks, Arts & Recreation news, please subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter at www.olympiawa.gov/subscribe.

In order to meet the soccer needs in the community, the project will likely include four, full-size rectangular fields. The fields may be a mix of synthetic and natural grass turf, depending on funding. Lights will be included for the synthetic fields. Further details regarding the fields will be developed through the master plan design process and as funding and grants are further developed.

Clearly developing a community park of this scale will have an impact on traffic.  It is our intent to design a project that mitigates these impacts to the degree possible. The consultant team includes a traffic and transportation engineering firm that will study the existing traffic patterns and volumes in the area, generate traffic and parking demand projections, and make recommendations to address potential impacts.

Currently there are no dedicated soccer/football fields in any Olympia parks. Youth soccer is the fastest-growing sport in the area, primarily due to interest in playing longer than what used to be the traditional “summer season”. Additionally, a number of other sports gaining popularity also utilize rectangular fields, such as ultimate Frisbee, lacrosse, and rugby.

Prior to and following purchase of the property the City commissioned multiple environmental site assessments to study whether contamination was present in the soil or groundwater at levels that exceed Ecology’s clean-up levels. With the exception of one small portion of the park that had some soil contamination, the site was found to be clean.  Clean-up will be performed concurrent with the future park development.

Recent advancements in lighting technology have resulted in lights that are more directional and energy efficient than in the past, thus greatly minimizing impacts of field lighting. And while it’s inevitable that there will be some noise impacts from a park of this size, it is the project’s intention to mitigate these impacts to the adjacent neighborhoods to the degree possible. The design team will consider the location of uses on the site, as well as possible buffers.