Olympia committee denies OSD request to put school at proposed Yelm Highway park
The Olympia Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee has voted 7-1 against the Olympia School District’s request to locate a school at the city’s proposed Yelm Highway Community Park.
The community park has been in the works for many years. The city of Olympia passed a voter approved utility tax increase in 2004 to pay to add 500 acres to its park system over the next 20 years. To contribute to that acreage, the city purchased 83 acres of property at 3323 Yelm Highway in 2018 for $10.7 million for a future park, now known as the Yelm Highway Community Park.
Surveys were conducted to gauge the public’s interest in the park and what amenities should be provided. Ultimately the surveys showed a need for more athletic fields as interest in sports such as soccer increases in the community.
The preferred plan for a community park includes athletic fields, open lawn space, tracks and trails, a dog park, playgrounds and more. A berry stand currently operates on the property and may continue to do so once a park exists there as well. Much of the land is natural and wooded with potential for conservation and protection as well as public use.
But concerns surfaced after the Olympia School District approached the Parks, Arts & Recreation Department in 2020 requesting a property trade or purchase that would place a secondary school alongside the park, potentially limiting access to one of the four proposed fields that attracted the department to site in the first place.
The advisory committee discussed at length the concerns it had with the proposed school on the site and partnership with the Olympia School District at its Dec. 2 meeting. The city and school district partnered with Berger Partnership, a landscape design company, to analyze the concerns brought up by the advisory committee. Matt Martenson presented the company’s findings to the committee.
The main concern was that the school district would need access to one of the four proposed fields for school athletics for a certain number of hours and potentially the other fields for larger weekend tournaments. There also were concerns around the lack of public support for school proposal and lack of information on cost sharing between the two entities.
Advisory Committee Chair Maria Ruth said she’s worried that all the details aren’t ironed out, and that considering the community has had its eye on this land for a park with four soccer fields for the last 20 years, it feels like the partnership would cut corners and leave important amenities behind.
“I am pro parks, I am pro public schools, I am pro partnerships,” Ruth said. “I just don’t think this is the right property for this. I wish this partnership could have started 10 years ago.”
Olympia School District Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Priddy said she understands that the details on how the partnership would work have not been ironed out.
She said the school district came to the table late because they had been working on remodeling Capital High School and Olympia High School, and with rising construction costs there was fear those projects wouldn’t be completed if another project was started at the same time. It wasn’t until after those remodels were finished that the district approached the committee.
She said the district wants to be a good partner and that she’s shocked there are concerns they wouldn’t be courteous and amenable when it comes to the use of the fields.
Priddy said the district is interested in having a school in the area because it is residential. The district owns parcels of land around the city that could accommodate a school, but there aren’t any in close proximity to students like the park site.
Several people suggested locating the proposed school at the current Reeves Middle School site on Quince Street in northeast Olympia and moving Reeves to the old John Rogers Elementary School site on 26th Avenue Northeast. Priddy said those two parcels of land are too small to give the school the amenities the district needs.
Instead, the district offered to use some of its unoccupied west Olympia land to build one or two extra fields, giving the parks and recreation department another park. Paul Simmons, the Parks, Arts & Recreation director, said the prospect of having a second smaller park elsewhere along with the Yelm Highway park would greatly benefit Olympians and make the parks system more accessible.
“I don’t think it’s serving the community less, it’s serving the community differently,” he said. “It’s about figuring out if it’s truly worth going this direction.”
But Ruth said the parks system has money in its budget to buy more land for parks, so they don’t need to rely on the school district to create more parks.
Other committee members voiced concerns over the loss of other amenities in the park if a school were to be added.
“It does seem to me there are a lot of ideas, and it just feels really rushed to the point of whether or not it ends up causing delays to the building of the park, there’s already been so much changed,” Ruth said.
The committee voted 7-1 to deny the partnership with the Olympia School District for the co-location of a school at the Yelm Highway Community Park. Spence Cearns was the lone member to vote for the partnership. He told The Olympian on Wednesday that he didn’t want to comment on his decision.
Next, the city departments and committees involved in the project will continue applying for grants, developing engineering design drawings and figuring out permits for the park. Construction is slated to begin by 2024.
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