March 25, 2011

Team sought for park master plan in Kent

Courtesy of City of Kent Public Art Collection. Photo by John Hoge, 1982 [enlarge]

Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks Park is a 98-acre linear park stretching over a mile from the outskirts of Kent’s downtown core up the city’s East Hill neighborhood.

The city of Kent is looking for a team to prepare a master plan for Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks Park. Responses are due by 5 p.m. on March 31.

The budget for the master plan is up to $85,000. Kent would like work to be done by the end of this year.

Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks Park is a 98-acre linear park stretching over a mile from the outskirts of Kent's downtown core up the city's East Hill neighborhood. The park has several unique features, leading to complex planning, including renowned functional artwork, a stormwater retention facility, a salmonid bearing stream and steep slopes. The master plan will guide future city development of the space.

The western two and a half acres where the canyon broadens and the creek flattens is the most level, open portion of the park. This area contains Herbert Bayer's Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks; a designed landscape composed of topographic features, pathways, water elements and lawns that function together as a public park, stormwater retention facility, and landscape artwork. Earthworks was designated as a local historic landmark in April of 2008.

Additional site features within the western portion of the park include parking, restrooms, site furniture, a stage and amphitheater. A trail system extending the length of the canyon has one major washout from recent storm activity. The remainder of the park to the east is undeveloped.

Jeff Watling, parks and community services director for the Kent Parks & Community Services Department, said Kent has owned the piece of public property for many years. The master plan will cover the entire Mill Creek Greenway, including the space where Earthworks Park is located, though the majority of work will focus on land outside of Earthworks Park.

“Completion will mean a linear park that creates better connectivity between downtown and east hill,” Watling said. “Better utilization of a terrific natural asset that links those two areas of the community.”

The greenway is a small canyon that houses Mill Creek. Currently, the canyon functions as ecological space and provides flood control for Mill Creek. One goal of the master plan is to create more recreational use in the greenway through trail connections or other elements. The greenway is consistently different widths and stretches between hundreds and thousands of feet wide at points.

The RFP for the project says the park's potential to serve as a city connection and foster a variety of uses has not yet been realized. Existing improvements have aged and are due for replacement or repair.

For more information, see the public notice in the March 1 edition of the DJC. Send questions to Jeff Watling at jwatling@ci.kent.wa.us.