Ridgefield’s first off-leash dog area is open for play time.
The dog area technically held a soft opening about three months ago, but some aspects of the park weren’t completed at the time. The city council and parks board hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 31 to officially open the park.
The roughly two-acre fenced area is part of a 20-acre parcel the city purchased for $450,000, $225,000 of which came from a Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office grant.
The dog area is on a two-year temporary contract with a one-year extension possible, according to Bryan Kast, the city’s public works director.
“We’ll evaluate how it’s been working and how the community has been using it,” Kast said. “We’ll see then if we want to make it a permanent facility.”
So far, it seems to be getting steady use, Kast said.
The area is near the auto gate of the River S entrance of the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. There’s a gravel parking lot for cars and a trail around the dog area. Another trail leads from South Great Blue Road to the edge of the 20-acre parcel. It’s a gravel path, but Kast said if the city decides to make the dog park permanent, the path will most likely become a sidewalk.
The city also has a vision for the rest of the parcel, which includes a play area and more trails into the refuge, but there’s no timetable for any of that.
DOGPAW, a nonprofit organization that advocates for off-leash dog parks, worked with the city to design the dog area, and the city owns and maintains it.
Kast said the city also had a lot of volunteer help putting up the fence and getting the area ready.
“It’s something we’ve heard a lot of requests for,” Kast said. “We evaluated a couple different sites. This was the site that seemed to work.”
