Tacoma’s newest park is a waterfront stunner, named for a leader, made for children
When redevelopment first began along the western side of the Thea Foss Waterway in the early 2000s, the shoreline looked liked a gap-toothed smile. There were more vacant lots than buildings. Over the years, those missing pieces have been slowly filled with museums and housing.
On April 12, the once polluted waterway will get its newest addition.
Melanie Jan LaPlant Dressel Park is a sparkling new playground geared toward children as well as a stunning vista for adults. Long before it opened, it came to be known simply as Melanie’s Park.
The park, at 1147 Dock St., is named after the former CEO of Columbia Bank and community philanthropist. This week, Dressel’s family took a tour of the grounds and play equipment. Her son, Robert Dressel, Jr., said the park represents the two most important aspects of his late mother’s life: family and community.
“She could have sat up there and looked down and see the kids play,” he said, with a nod toward Columbia Bank’s headquarters which overlooks the park. In 2021, Columbia Bank merged with Umpqua Bank.
Features
Although the nearly one-acre park is geared toward children, it’s much more than a playground. Art and history are woven into the site.
Adults who may not want to slide down a twisty metal tube or ascend the 36-foot-tall climbing tower will find the serpentine walk to a 50-foot-long bridge rewards them with a new and stunning vista of the waterfront.
The 11-foot-tall bridge has simultaneous views of downtown Tacoma, a busy train yard, the Murray Morgan Bridge, Mount Rainier, a marina and soon, the Port Maritime Center.
A building with an indoor space that can be rented out for birthday parties and other functions anchors one corner of the park.
Between the park and the water is a sort of esplanade to nowhere. All developments, private or public, are required to build sections of the Foss Waterway esplanade as part of their projects. But because vacant lots are on either side of Melanie’s Park, it’s not connected to the rest of the popular walkway.
Play time
“There is nowhere really on the waterfront to just play,” said Metro Parks project manager Kristi Evans. That changes on April 12.
The park is geared toward children aged 5-12, Evans said.
The high point of the park is its climbing tower. Children can enter from either at ground or at bridge level and they can leave through the metal tube slide. On the opposite side of the hill that centers the park, a “log jam” offers well sanded timber for kids to climb on, under and around.
The waterside of the hill features concrete stadium style seating, reminiscent of a similar but larger feature at Dune Peninsula.
An open air slide and a grassy slope give kids even more ways to enjoy the effects of gravity.
Timeline
Designs for what would become Melanie’s Park were presented in early 2016. That same year, the Foss Waterway Development Authority began raising money toward the park’s $4.6 million design and construction costs. Half of the funding, $2.2 million, came from a bond voters approved in 2014. The other half came from $1.2 million in private donations, $750,000 from the City of Tacoma, $490,000 from a Washington state commerce grant and $50,000 from Pierce County.
Most of the private donations came from foundations, friends of Dressel and employees of Columbia Bank. The city named the park for Dressel in 2018.
History
The park site has a long history, according to Metro Parks historian Claire Keller-Scholz. Metro Parks wasn’t satisfied to just offer placards explaining tribal and industrial history.
Tribal artists created designs that have been stamped in the pavement using bright colors. One of the Puyallup Tribe’s ancestral settlements was located nearby on the site of today’s Tollefson Plaza. The tribe used the shore for fishing camps.
The park’s hill hearkens backs to the days when fuel piles lined the shore and fed industry. The log jam is a nod to the region’s timber industry.
The former Consumer Central Heating Plant that once stood there is reflected in the smokestack-like climbing tower. The 20-foot-long curly slide resembles a twisted drain pipe that dispenses laughing kids instead of pollution.
The site’s industrial era was an interruption of what had long been a place for people to gather, Keller-Scholz said.
“It really feels like Melanie’s Park is kind of calling back to that earlier heritage,” she said. “(It is) providing a space for families and all age groups to play and picnic together.”
Melanie Dressel
During her 17-year tenure as president and chief executive officer, Dressel oversaw the Columbia Bank’s growth to more than $9 billion in assets and more than 140 branches in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
In February 2017, Dressel died unexpectedly at age 64 at her Key Peninsula home.
Tacoma benefited from the corporate stability and community philanthropy that Dressel preached and lived, according to a 2017 editorial in The News Tribune.
“Dressel was known for a humane approach to Columbia’s many acquisitions. She adhered to a ‘no jerks’ culture even as her bank weathered the Great Recession, a cutthroat time that didn’t always bring out the best in U.S. financial executives,” the editorial stated.
Legacy
Melanie Dressel’s husband, Robert Dressel, Sr., brought his dog, Pretty Von Pendlar, to the park for the walk around. The pair roamed the various features of the site.
Melanie Dressel grew up in Colville, Washingon, adjacent to a city park. Her husband recalled the first time he met his future in-laws.
“We met the parents, got that out of the way,” Robert Dressel, Sr. said. “And then we went over to the park.”
The Dressels’ other son, Brent Dressel, said the park is a joyful place with a tinge of sadness for the family.
“It’s a shame she’s not around to see it,” Brent said. “Because it’s going to bring some joy to people ... that’s part of what she wanted to do.”
“She liked happy places,” Robert Dressel Sr., said. “And this is a happy place.”
NOTE: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of waterfront parks Metro Parks Tacoma administrates.
This story was originally published April 7, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
