Olympia closes Artesian Commons Park indefinitely because of threats to staff

A problematic park in downtown Olympia is closed indefinitely because of threats against park staff, Olympia’s parks department announced Friday.

The Artesian Commons Park on Fourth Avenue East has had problems since it opened in 2014. But “escalated and specific threats” made in recent weeks prompted the decision this week to close it, said Paul Simmons, director of Olympia Parks, Arts & Recreation.

“The park has always had challenges, but these threats were different,” he said. “It’s beyond (the parks department’s) ability to manage the park as it was intended.”

Simmons declined to provide details about the threats.

The 0.2-acre park — a block from City Hall — closed Thursday night and by Friday morning there was a chain-link fence around it to keep people out. The artesian well and a 24-hour restroom outside the fence remain open.

The city bought the artesian well and a surrounding parking lot in 2010, according to Olympian archives. It was already a place where people gathered and the city’s intention was to encourage “positive uses” — with food trucks, ping pong games, live music and pickup basketball — to push out negative behavior, Simmons said.

Almost as soon as the park opened, the city received complaints about violence, vandalism and drug use. Since 2014, there have been 70 assaults or crimes against people and 51 people trespassed from the site for illegal and violent behavior, according to Simmons.

Less than a year in, the Olympia City Council considered closing the park.

It stayed open, and in 2015, the city created the Artesian Leadership Committee with community members, business representatives and city staff to make recommendations on park staffing, design and activities. The city hired a seasonal well host and park ranger, added lighting and security cameras, and limited operating hours, among other things.

“I think it’s a very challenging location to have a park, and I think we need to take a hard look to evaluate the best use of our resources,” Simmons said.

There is no timeline to reopen the park. Simmons said he expects the City Council will take up the issue in the fall.

For the past month, Christine Hensley has been camping near the Artesian Commons — where she had access to a restroom and clean water from the well — and hung out in the park during the day.

She woke up Friday to the sound of the chain-link fence going up.

“I felt safe here, and this is one of the few places I felt safe,” Hensley, 28, said. “I don’t actually know where to go right now.”

Eric Smith and his wife own The Pet Works on Fourth Avenue next to the park. He said problems there had nothing to do with homelessness; it was drug dealing and drug use that brought the threats and violence.

Smith called the park “the epicenter” of crime in downtown.

“It was a place where innocent people gathered and unfortunately those innocent people were also vulnerable people and it was an opportunity for predators to take advantage of them,” Smith said. “If it has to be shut down, then so be it. But it’s not for lack of trying on the part of the city.”

This story was originally published August 24, 2018 at 11:18 AM.