Cascade Park’s swings don’t have seats. The play equipment is covered in graffiti and mildew, and picnic tables are splintered.
Built in 1973, the woodsy, 3-acre public space on Southeast Laver Street is tired and overgrown, with an ivy-covered berm along the street that blocks the playgrounds from view.
Neighbors complain of suspicious activity there. But mostly, the park is used as a cut-through to Crestline Elementary School, Vancouver city staff said.
That’s about to change.
The city of Vancouver is launching a $362,000 renovation of Cascade Park this week in partnership with the nonprofit Evergreen School District Foundation, which contributed $88,000 toward the project. City contractor Proexc LLC of Battle Ground, the project’s low bidder, will relocate the two playgrounds so they’re more visible from the street, replace the 25-year-old play structures, replace the picnic tables and trash cans, cut diseased and dead trees, repair asphalt paths, replace broken lights, remove the berm and install new landscaping and sidewalks. New trees will be planted along Laver Street.
The work should be finished by June, said Terry Snyder, the city’s landscape architect. The city’s part of the funding for the project comes from park impact fees and the general fund.
The school district foundation approached the city about a joint project nearly two years ago when it had extra money to spend, said Gail Spolar, a foundation board member and director of communications for Evergreen Public Schools.
In February 2013, a fire destroyed Crestline Elementary, at 13003 S.E. Seventh St. The loss prompted people from across the United States to donate money, which the foundation collected and distributed for things such as school supplies and teaching materials.
After the insurance paid out and the school was rebuilt and furnished, the Crestline fire account still contained $88,000, Spolar said.
“Obviously, people wanted this money to benefit the community of Crestline,” and so the school and district explored what else could be done, she said. After talking with the city, they decided to put the money toward Cascade Park, which opens onto the rear of Crestline Elementary’s playground.
The city parks department reached out to the school and neighbors to find out what improvements were needed, she said.
Some of the trees to be removed — pines, maples and Douglas firs — will be salvaged for log benches and nature play components for Crestline Elementary outdoor classroom activities at the park, Snyder said. The city won’t plant bushes in the outdoor education area because the school wants the students to be involved in the task, he said.
The renovation will include $50,000 worth of new play equipment, which will have an area for tots under age 5 and a structure for older kids that encourages more fitness-based play with rope ladders, monkey bars and rock walls, Snyder said. Crestline Elementary has a traditional post-and-platform playground a couple hundred yards away “so there was no need to duplicate the same thing,” he said.
The city acquired the park from Clark County as part of a massive annexation of land in 1997.
“I think giving it a new face-lift … will make it a more attractive and a more popular park to come and use,” Snyder said.
