LYNNWOOD — What used to be a private airstrip is undergoing a transformation into a public park.
Snohomish County recently broke ground on Martha Lake Airport Park.
Plans call for soccer fields, baseball fields and the first county-run skate park. Eventually, the grounds should be adorned with artwork, dotted with picnic areas and lined with trails. Dogs will be able to run free at an off-leash area.
“It’ll be a great community-based park,” county parks director Tom Teigen said. “Obviously the local community will use it quite a bit. They already have been and they’ll continue to use it.”
The site, a longish 18-acre rectangle, is nestled among suburban neighborhoods. The former runway has a rich history.
The airport was built about 50 years ago so the owner could commute by plane to his job in Seattle. But the airport had a reputation as a difficult spot to land, and some pilots in the past splash-landed in Martha Lake instead of on the nearby landing strip.
Design work has been underway for more than five years.
Though construction began officially on Feb. 23, people have long been venturing into the flat, grassy area for sports and dog-walking.
Eventually, three pieces of artwork that pay tribute to flights of sorts should go up: a sculpture of a skateboarder catching air by artist Michael Whiting, a five-sculpture series called “Simple Arrow” by Peter Reiquam; and a 14-foot sculpture depicting Leonardo Da Vinci’s winged flying apparatus. Funding comes from a county ordinance that sets aside 1 percent of bids for artwork.
The first phase of the project on land south of 146th costs $3.1 million. That’s cheaper than expected, Teigen said, because 15 bidders competed for the contract.
An area on the north side of the street is expected to be developed in the future as part of a second phase. After the county performs some simple upgrades, dog owners can use it to let their pets run off leash, Teigen said.
The Martha Lake park is one of many projects in a expansive period of expansion for the parks and recreation department that has been ongoing for two years. The county spent $20 million on new parks last year, the director said, drawing on money that had built up for at least a decade. The county plans to open up more than 1,000 acres of new parks this year, including facilities near Paine Field in the spring and in Lake Stevens later in the year.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465 or nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
For more information on Martha Lake Airport Park or other Snohomish County parks, go to www.snocoparks.org.
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