Gene Wigglesworth, chairperson of the First Place Neighborhood Association, is working to add a gazebo to First Place Park in Vancouver. (Amanda Cowan/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
First Place Park has come a long way in the past decade, from a bit of a bland open space dotted by a handful of trees that struggled in the summer sun to a lusher neighborhood park with a growing list of amenities.
“When my wife and I built our house (about a decade ago), the park was in pretty sad shape,” said Gene Wigglesworth, chair of the First Place Neighborhood Association.
Things have changed quite a bit since then, and the addition of a new gazebo is something of a high point for the park and the people who tend to it.
If all goes according to plan, the 30-foot hexagonal gazebo will be in place in time for the neighborhood association’s 20th anniversary and annual picnic in September.
“It’s coming together nicely,” Wigglesworth said.
Wigglesworth said he’s known in the neighborhood as the park czar, though he quipped that it’s a title valid only until some community-minded usurpers start a revolution. In the meantime, he’s been corralling volunteers, finding young trees at a good price and arranging deliveries of bark chips to spread around.
First Place Park is a city property located along Northeast 16th Street and Northeast 151st Avenue, but Wigglesworth and some of his neighbors, through working with the city, have made it their cause to bring the park to a new level.
“We love partnering with groups and nonprofits where feasible,” said Julie Hannon, Director of Vancouver’s Parks and Recreation Department. “All the issues that occur at the park are done with prior approval from Parks or (Urban) Forestry staff, so the approved project does, indeed, help support the city’s vision of strong citizen involvement and a strong park system.”
The park sits in an east Vancouver neighborhood, surrounded by large, newer homes, with all the trappings of a quiet suburban neighborhood, but perhaps not all the substance as evidenced by the streetside trees of various ages on Northeast 151st Avenue.
“Until we got the fence in, they kept getting run over. … We would have weekend 4x4s come out here and do whirligigs all through the park,” Wigglesworth said.
Neighborhood residents were relieved with the installation of a new fence in 2005 and four speed cushions in the street in 2010.
Through the years, volunteers have beaten back stubborn weeds and added such things as benches, picnic tables, a community garden and a gravel pathway. They’ve also been making a big push to add trees, in part for aesthetics, but also to cut back future noise pollution when nearby Northeast 18th Street is widened.
The city of Vancouver is providing the new gazebo, and the First Place Neighborhood Association is funding the concrete slab it’ll stand on.
The city had planned to transplant a gazebo from another park into First Place, but between the costs of tearing down and rebuilding it and making needed repairs, city officials thought it made more sense to buy a new one.
Hannon said in an email that the department’s first priority is addressing the roughly $10 million in needed capital repairs in existing neighborhood parks, so the department asks neighborhood associations or nonprofits to help fund specialized projects like the gazebo.
Allan Griffin moved into the neighborhood less than a year ago and got involved with the neighborhood association shortly after. As a project manager, he could see that getting a gazebo into the park could get complicated, so he decided to help out.
“The gazebo is a cool project,” Griffin said. “This park is just a grass area and a little playground for the kids but this will allow the people who live here to use it on a frequent basis. I’m trying to drive the project and to get it done so we have the gazebo ready to use on Sept. 10.”
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