Olympia resident sells 10 acres to city for future park, forest preservation
The City of Olympia has partnered with a local conservation organization to purchase a nearly 10-acre property of undeveloped land awash in mature, native trees to become a future public park.
Parks Planning and Design Manager Laura Keehan said the city finalized the purchase of the property on Oct. 31 and will soon be sending staff out to begin working on making it accessible. The Olympian joined Keehan on a tour of the property on Nov. 18 along with a representative of the Margaret E. Long Estate and members of the Angela J. Bowen Conservancy Foundation.
The 9.85-acre property is located at 401 Kaiser Road Northwest, just south of the newly-renovated Grass Lake Nature Park and tucked between a handful of churches and a new residential development.
Suzanne Long Paulsrude said her family has owned the property since 1964 — she’s retaining the house her father built on 4 acres adjacent to the forested property. She said it would have been her parents’ wish to preserve the forest and prevent future development.
Paulsrude approached the city to inquire about selling the property, which aligns with the proposed Capitol to Capitol Trail. The first mile-long segment of the trail was just recently constructed at Grass Lake Nature Park down the street. The idea behind the trail is to connect the Washington State Capitol with the State Capital Forest.
This new section of trail would eventually connect Grass Lake to the trails on either side of Evergreen Parkway and to Evergreen State College.
Paulsrude said the family estate sold the property to the City of Olympia for $2.9 million. Because of the habitat and trail connection value of the property, the Angela J. Bowen Conservancy Foundation donated half of the purchase price, or $1,450,000, to the city to complete the purchase.
Keehan said this is the first time the city has partnered with the Bowen Foundation. She said before Bowen died in 2017, the foundation preserved a 3.2-acre rhododendron and azalea farm in northeast Olympia that was created in the 1960s, and donated it to the city.
Keehan said she’s hopeful the city will be able to partner with the foundation more in the future to continue bringing properties like this one into conservation, and open them up to the public. But conservation means the future park won’t have playground equipment or courts for playing sports.
“It’d be pretty rare for the Bowen Foundation to pay for concrete, right?” said foundation member Doug Mah. “We may consider it, and I’m not going to say it’s completely outside the realm, but if you were to approach us to say: ‘We want to build a parking lot so we have access to properties,’ we probably would go, ‘Doesn’t really fit with our mission and what we’re interested in doing.’”
Mah said some of the easiest types of acquisitions for them are those that go into conservation and are never accessed. But in order to balance their mission with the city’s mission, there has to be some public accessibility.
“You’re starting to see more and more land trusts create opportunities for access,” Mah said.
He said there’s great value in preserving the land untouched, but there’s also a recognition that they have to encourage people to get out and see the sites to understand why they are valuable.
Keehan said the city doesn’t have a timeline for when folks will be able to access the new park property. She said the city has only owned it for a couple of weeks, and they still have to have survey markers placed and arborists come to ensure there are no hazards.
Walking through the property, Paulsrude pointed out mushrooms and mature groupings of trees. The understory has been carefully maintained by her family over the decades to keep it accessible and free from invasive species.
“My parents really wanted it kept in the family, but now that my parents have passed away, it’s not possible,” Paulsrude said. “So this is the next best thing, preserving it because they loved it.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that Suzanne Long Paulsrude’s mother’s estate, the Margaret E. Long estate, sold the property to the city.
This story was originally published November 25, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
.jpg)