With each mound of dirt that’s moved from one spot to another, this city’s first multiuse park gets closer to reality.
Construction on the Mill Creek Sports Park — complete with an artificial turf baseball/softball field, a soccer field, a 10,000 square-foot skate park, and a 33-stall parking lot — started three weeks ago and is on schedule for completion in August.
The Mill Creek City Council unanimously agreed to call it the Mill Creek Sports Park during Tuesday’s meeting. In addition, the council awarded a bid to SRI Sports, Inc., to install the new artifical turf field.
The people who suggested the winning name will receive $75. Two people — Heather Bodach and Lindsey Ryan — suggested Mill Creek Sports Park. The prize will be split equally.
Bodach, who lives in Lake Stevens, was thrilled that her name was the choice.
“When do they put the signs up?” she asked. “I’ll have to go get my picture taken in front of it.”
Bodach — whose children are 5, 3 and 1 — said she’ll be sure to visit the park often.
The other two finalist names were Freedom Park and Trillium Park.
“They liked the sentiment behind the name Freedom Park, but they seemed to want something that better identified Mill Creek,” said Doug Jacobsen, Mill Creek’s public works director.
Ann Carlton’s fourth-grade class at Mill Creek Elementary and Mill Creek resident Rosalie Kosher suggested Freedom Park.
The class chose the name to honor those who died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and in the Columbia space shuttle accident in February, according to their entry.
The name would also “help people remember that others gave their lives for our freedom to relax in a safe, beautiful park,” the class submission stated.
The park is being built on a 5-acre site where one house rested at the corner of Trillium Boulevard Southeast and Highway 527. The property was purchased in February 2002, and the total project, including the land, design and construction, is expected to cost $4.5 million, Jacobsen said.
A state grant covered $1 million of the project, while the city paid $1 million and the remainder is covered by mitigation fees paid by developers.
The baseball/softball area will be known as Freedom Field, and the skate park may eventually get its own name as well, Jacobsen said.
Mill Creek’s Little League baseball games and other organized sports are currently played on school sites, mostly at Heatherwood Middle School, said Lynn Devoir, the city’s recreation supervisor.
Because space is at such a premium, the relatively small park is being built to accommodate several sports for as much of the year as possible.
The fields will have AstroPlay turf, similar to the FieldTurf at Seahawks Stadium in Seattle. It is a rubberized turf with a rubber fill underneath, making it playable in all weather. AstroPlay is used on professional fields including the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium in New York. Soccer will be played in the baseball/softball outfield, and the entire park will have lights for use at night.
“We’re really trying to maximize the number of hours and months of the year when the park can be used, since ground is so sparse in Mill Creek, and it’s being built out so much,” Jacobsen said.
Concerns about lights and noise from some neighbors in the Douglas Fir housing development were addressed in the park’s conditional use permit.
Among other limitations, the park’s lights will be automatically timed to turn off at 10 p.m., with secondary lights staying on an extra half-hour to allow people to put equipment away and leave safely. Also, the city has an agreement with St. Francis Church next to the park to provide 40 spaces for overflow parking that should discourage people from parking in the nearby neighborhood.
Victor Balta is a reporter for the Herald in Everett.
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