Otto Brown Neighborhood Park will include a nature play area that repurposes trees that need to be cut down for construction and highlights remaining trees. The nature area will include a wood chip path, logs to climb on and landscaping to attract butterflies, birds and other wildlife. Alisha Jucevic/The Columbian Photo Gallery
A neighborhood park eight years in the making is finally coming to fruition.
Next week, construction will begin on the Otto Brown Neighborhood Park in unincorporated Clark County, outside of city limits in east Vancouver. Design work began on the 7.9-acre park in 2010, and it was scheduled to be constructed in 2011.
The park — funded by park impact fees, which are collected when new housing is built — was delayed when the economy slowed.
Catworks Construction in Battle Ground, which received the $922,100 construction contract, will begin work on Feb. 15. The park is set to open to the public in late August.
“We are very excited, of course, to finally deliver this park to the neighborhood,” said Scot Brantley, project manager for Clark County Public Works.
The park, 15809 N.E. 96th St., is along the south side of Northeast 96th Street, west of Northeast 162nd Avenue. As part of the project, a barricade on Northwest 96th Street will be removed to make the street a thoroughfare. The park will not have a parking lot — neighborhood parks are designed to be walked to — but frontage improvements will create some street parking, Brantley said.
Once complete, the park will include a perimeter asphalt path, sports court, nature play area and constructed play equipment. It will also have benches and picnic tables.
The nature play area will repurpose existing trees that need to be removed for construction. The trees will be cut into “lily pads” that kids can jump on and log chunks they can climb on. Wood chip trails will wind through remaining trees, and landscaping will be designed to attract butterflies, birds and other wildlife.
“It’s really creating places for kids to imaginary play,” Brantley said.
The built play structure will be a unique nod to the park’s namesake.
The park is named for Otto Alexander Brown, a Clark County native born in the Hockinson area in May 1878. In the 1890s — in the midst of the national bicycle craze — Otto Brown built a bicycle almost entirely out of wood. The bicycle had tires made of rope and wheels turned on a horse-powered lathe. Brown rode his creation to Vancouver for the city’s annual Fourth of July celebration.
A bicycle shop owner was so impressed with the invention that he gave Brown a new bicycle in exchange for the wooden one, which sat in the store’s display window for years. Brown died in 1967, at age 89.
During park planning in 2010, the neighborhood suggested naming the park in honor of Brown and his innovative work. In addition to the name, the park’s play structure will be shaped like a bicycle and feature slides, stairs and poles.
Heritage neighborhood resident Phil Harris hopes the park’s design will be fun for older and younger kids. He moved into the neighborhood in May and was excited to learn a new park was set to be built down the street from his house.
“I have a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old, so the timing is great for us,” Harris said.
Harris is also happy to see residents who lived in the neighborhood when the park was first proposed finally get their park. The green space is needed, he said, as more and more homes are being built in the area.
“There’s just so many houses going up,” Harris said. “The parks seem to be forgotten about.”
Brantley agrees that the residential growth surrounding the park has increased significantly since the park was first proposed. A housing development east of the park is new, as is a nearby apartment complex, he said.
“This is a much-needed resource for that community,” Brantley said.
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