Groups ponder partnering on multi-field complex

Published 10:18 am Monday, March 3, 2008

If a concept served up by a public-private partnership hits its mark, the result could be a new sports complex in Edmonds that meets the needs of schools, recreation leagues and the community.

Still in the “what if” stage is an idea by the Edmonds School District, city of Edmonds, King’s Schools and Sno-King Youth Club to partner on a multi-field sports complex on the playfields and open space surrounding the former Woodway High School.

The ball began rolling after informal chats last spring among Marla Miller, executive director of business and operations for the school district; Jim Gwinn, president of CRISTA Ministries, King’s parent organization; and Edmonds Mayor Gary Haakenson.

Costs, time lines and other details are down the road. The potential partners still are figuring out if the ambitious project is even possible.

Figure the price to be “in the millions,” guessed Brian McIntosh, director of Edmonds Parks and Recreation. Probable funding sources, he said, are King’s, city parks-development, user-group contributions and user fees.

A conceptual sketch by Bassetti Architects, designers of the new Lynnwood High School, shows three separate fields — two designed for baseball and soccer and one built for softball and soccer. Depending on costs and field demand, McIntosh said the multiplex could be built in one, two or three stages.

Lighting for nighttime play is a given, according to the partners. There’s talk of artificial grass playing surfaces to reduce maintenance and improve playability. The addition of play structures, pathways, trails, a concession building, bleacher seating and restrooms to create a family-friendly play area also are on the wish list. The wisdom of designing the fields to accommodate up-and-coming sports like lacrosse and rugby is being pondered.

“I think everyone recognized it as an underutilized facility that has much potential as a community park,” McIntosh said.

The land is owned by the school district. It is obliged by a long-standing agreement with the state to use the property for educational purposes, according to district officials.

That agreement would be honored by continued use of the school buildings by the Homeschool Resource Center and several vocational and life-skill programs, said district spokesman John Boerger.

“… The district is encouraging this project,” said McIntosh, adding that the “good thing is the land cost is zero” if the district antes up the site for the project.

To Edmonds, the site — now a rough, minimally maintained area — could be another jewel in its ever-growing necklace of public green spaces. As per the city’s contribution, “it makes the most sense that the city would schedule and maintain the site since the district’s use will be minimal. They have capacity at their existing sites to meet their needs,” McIntosh said.

The parks director admitted earlier this summer to being slightly taken aback by the Edmonds City Council’s swift decision to try and buy the entire site of the former Woodway Elementary from the district for use as a park. He and the City Council were eyeing the same parks-development fund as a potential source of revenue for their respective projects.

“Naturally, with two projects at once it would stretch the dollars,” McIntosh said. “Or one project would be on hold while the other developed. Also, if a primary athletic complex is built at the old high-school site, that may influence how the adjacent site (the former elementary school at the foot of the hill beneath the old high school) is developed.”

The partner with perhaps the most to gain by co-owning additional playing fields is King’s Schools in Shoreline. The private Christian school — whose athletic program was recently named No. 1 among all Washington high schools by Sports Illustrated — can now think seriously about expanding the relatively limited number of team sports it offers, said superintendent Eric Rasmussen.

He pointed to boys and girls soccer, softball and baseball as possible additions to the high-school sports roster that’s composed of football, boys and girls cross country, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls track and boys and girls golf.

“When we moved to (Class) 2A and joined the Cascade Conference, we had a gentlemen’s agreement to consider adding more sports,” Rasmussen said. That intention, he added, has been hampered by a lack of playing facilities.

Rasmussen was careful to say no new sport will be introduced until a parent survey to determine interest and support is taken.

Since more fields are critical to expansion of the King’s sports program, Rasmussen said the school is anxious to explore partnering with others in a complex that literally is a scant few minutes drive from the campus.

“King’s is maxed out for expansion,” said Rasmussen, who coached the girls basketball team to a state championship in 2005. “There’s no space on campus (for fields).”

Rasmussen said a new complex with artificial surface fields also could be used for King’s football practices as well as the junior-high sports program.

“Woolsey is a great stadium but the natural turf can only take so much,” he said about the home of the Knights’ football and track teams.

After beginning talks with the city and district last spring, Rasmussen said King’s earmarked money for the project. He added the school would love to get going on it “sooner rather than later … in the fall of ‘06, if that’s feasible.”

Well-lit fields for late-night play and safe, level playing surfaces are music to the ears of Jim Garcia, the new program director of Sno-King Youth Club.

Garcia bubbles with excitement about being included in early talks about a new sports complex in Edmonds.

For 29 years Sno-King has brought “quality, accessible and affordable sports programs” to the community, Garcia said. “But one of the problems we always have with youth sports,” he added, “is that we don’t have control of the facilities.”

Costs increase, management changes and Sno-King has to absorb the blows without having a say-so in the operations, he fretted.

As a non-profit organization with little money for capital purchases, Garcia said he sees Sno-King’s role in a partnership as one of administration. He would like to see other sports organizations such as Pacific Little League get involved, too. “Those who actually utilize the fields,” Garcia said, “should administer them.”

“We’ve got the concept and the dream,” the jovial Sno-King director said.

Now it looks like it’s up to the partnership to figure out a workable plan and a way to pay for it.