Tacoma’s other big park gets 4-acre dog run, picnic shelters, parking and play areas
Where families once lived on Tacoma’s Eastside, a new place for play, picnics and pooches opens Friday.
Metro Parks Tacoma is unveiling a section of Swan Creek Park that has been upgraded with new paths, restrooms, picnic shelters, a play area and a dog park.
People who live nearby told Metro Parks they wanted a safe place for kids, a dog area and opportunities to hold picnics and events in the 373-acre park. The parks people listened, they said, and the new amenities are the result.
The park, roughly between Waller Road West and East Roosevelt Avenue, holds forests, trails and other natural areas. Its namesake creek runs the length of the park.
The newly developed area overlays a former neighborhood in the Salishan development that housed workers and their families during World War II. Today, streets and sidewalks are still in place but firs grow where homes once stood.
The area is uphill (south) of Lister Elementary School. A new parking area adds 75 spaces near the entry point at East 44th and T streets.
Dog park and log lane
On Thursday evening, crews were working to finish trimming trees inside a 4-acre fenced dog park. It’s the biggest on Tacoma’s Eastside.
Beginning at the parking area and adjacent to the dog park is a “Pause-and-Play” area built on what used to be one of the neighborhood’s streets. It uses logs for climbing, stout sticks for doing whatever kids do with big woody limbs and benches for sitting. The bench timbers, some approaching 3-foot-square, are cut from single logs.
A new picnic shelter has room for 10 tables. Rentals will begin in 2022, Metro Parks said.
Nearby are bike racks and a tool station with a variety of implements to fix bicycles. Yes, they are tethered. There’s also an air pump for leaky tires.
Metro Parks renovated five miles of trails as part of the project. Those trails connect with mountain biking trails in the park’s southern region as well as the regional Pipeline Trail.
History is remembered at the park with signs that call attention to the people who used the area: Puyallup people and other local tribes, loggers, apple growers, factory workers.
New restrooms will open in early 2022.
Funds for the new amenities came from $4 million in voter-approved bonds, a $720,323 Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office Legacy Grant and $17,500 from the Greater Metro Parks Foundation.
