Community Corner
Leach Creek Park Will Be Dedicated This Saturday
Bring your work boots and gloves if you like, as volunteers will be removing blackberries and Scotch Broom from the 15-acre site. University Place acquired the property via a Pierce County Conservation Futures grant and money from its real estate excise t
This Saturday, Oct. 22 at 9 a.m., the city will dedicate its newest piece parkland, the Leach Creek Property.
Following this dedication will be a work party. It is “Make a Difference Day” for this park. If you want to volunteer to help at this event, bring your work boots and gloves. Tools will be provided to remove blackberries and Scotch Broom.
This property consists of 15 acres of land: 6 acres of uplands and 9 acres of wetlands/ wetland buffers. With more than 1,000 linear feet bordering Leach Creek, the park will begin to provide open space and a recreation area to the 11,000 people living within a mile of it.
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Prior to being acquired by University Place, the . It was purchased for $750,000. A grant of $685,000 from Pierce County Conservation Futures and $65,000 from the city's real estate excise tax (REET) paid for the site. REET money is restricted for this type of use only.
This totally undeveloped park has the potential to provide a ball field, walking trails, open space, and a trailhead for the proposed Leach Creek Trail that ends at Chambers Bay.
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Following the dedication, members of the University Place Parks Commission will be available to take interested people on a short walking tour of this undeveloped property.
In 2012, the UP Parks Commission will ask the public to help with the development of a “Vision” for this park.
Directions to the site are:
The park is bordered on the North by Cirque Drive West and Alameda Avenue West. Here are the directions:
1. Go south on Orchard Street toward Meadow Park Golf Course
2. Turn right onto 64th Street West
3. Turn right onto 57th Avenue heading north for several hundred yards.
There will be signs on Orchard and 57th Avenue with directions to the site.
Even with the acquisition of this property, UP is still woefully short of parkland. The National Recreation and Park Association Standard for Park Land are 34.45 Acres of land per 1,000 people.
University Place is about 90 percent short of this having only 3.63 acres/1,000 population — the lowest percentage per population for parkland of any city in the South Puget Sound area!
The Leach Creek property represents a step in the right direction.