Worthy and Associates
Specialty: Parks, trails, natural areas
Management: Steve Worthy, founder and principal
Year founded: 1983
Headquarters: Seattle
Current projects: Snohomish County Parks, city of Kirkland parks and school partnerships, city of Mount Vernon park project
Image courtesy of Worthy and Associates
Worthy and Associates designed this forest seating area as part of a park/school improvement project at Ben Franklin Elementary School in Kirkland.
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Steve Worthy, founder of Worthy and Associates, keeps his workload balanced. The firm’s focus is on athletic fields and parks with sports orientations, as well as regional trails, natural areas, and forest and wetland enhancements.
The firm’s Willis D. Tucker Park for Snohomish County will have some of each: sports fields, low-impact drainage, environmental enhancements, trails and an amphitheater.
Worthy is also doing projects in Kirkland and Mount Vernon that have sports fields, wetland boardwalks and outdoor environmental classrooms.
In the private sector, Worthy completed a large lavender farm and garden project on Vashon Island. It will be open for private gatherings and part of the Lavender Festival tour.
Low-impact designs
The Willis D. Tucker Park was the first project in Snohomish County to use low-impact development techniques for stormwater management — incorporating rain gardens associated with the new roadway, administration building and parking areas.
Low-impact designs, such as those used at Tucker Park, are growing in popularity because they “support the public’s desire to enhance and protect wildlife habitat and forest and wetland preserves,” he said.
“With diminishing open space in Western Washington, it’s clearly the correct direction,” he said.
For Worthy, sustainable development is a long-standing passion.
“This is something I’ve been involved with for all my career — this balance of sustainable environmental enhancements and accommodation of public recreational needs,” he said.