Town vies for grants to fund new waterfront park

Development plans for La Conner’s new waterfront park are moving full steam ahead, with town officials working hard to secure grants for the project.

Conner Waterfront Park will encompass the 600-foot stretch of land between Pioneer Park and the Swinomish Channel.

La Conner Town Administrator John Doyle traveled to Olympia with architect Curt Miller to present the plans for the park to the state’s Recreation and Conservation Office, an agency that allocates grants to parks, trails, and other nature-oriented projects.

The Recreation and Conser-vation Office meets cities halfway in the funding of projects, covering 50 percent of the costs. The first phase of the Conner Park project is estimated to cost $210,000, according to Doyle. The town is applying for a $106,000 grant.

The 12 governor-appointed board members of the Recreation and Conservation Office saw Doyle’s presentation last week. “They were very receptive and supportive,” Doyle said.

Competing for park grants this year are about 70 municipalities. Although it will be months before La Conner finds out if it will be awarded a grant, the town will find out where the town’s project ranks on the Recreation and Conservation list of all the competing projects sometime in the next couple of weeks. When he did an encore presentation of his power point to the Town Council at the last meeting, Doyle said that any town that finds itself in the top 20 or so can usually breathe easily and count on receiving a grant.

The Recreation and Conser-vation Office goes down the list, allocating the full grant amount requested to each city until there is no more money to go around. However, “the local jurisdiction has to be able to match the grant,” Doyle said. This means that if towns higher up on the list have not raised enough funds to cover the other half of the project, they will be passed over for towns lower down on the list.

La Conner is prepared to provide the remaining $104,000 if chosen. The town has al-ready received $24,000 from individual donors, including $1,000 from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. And there is a pledge of $50,000 in a matching fund grant from the Osberg Family Trust, which has provided $20,473 to date.

If the town does receive the grant, it will have to wait until late 2015 or early 2016 to begin phase one, due to the state budget’s schedule. If it does not receive the grant, it will begin earlier.

Phase one of the project will include the construction of a children’s play area, a cross walk to the Pioneer Park stairs, a parking lot, and a family picnic area. Doyle showed detailed photos of the proposed kids’ playground at the Town Council meeting. The play area will consist of a salmon-shaped slide, a metal, salmon-shaped bridge, and a climbing apparatus. Due to all of its equipment, the playground will be the most expensive part of phase one, coming in at around $90,000.

“The closest parks for kids now are in Anacortes and Mount Vernon,” said Doyle at the meeting, reiterating the importance of Conner Park. “The park is our number-one priority, now that the boardwalk is on its way.”

Once phase one is complete, park-goers will also have the opportunity to wade and swim in the beach area. This will be the only place in La Conner in which people can actually walk into the Swinomish Channel.