This new Bellingham park will let kids play on boulders, logs and swing on ropes
Bellingham’s newest park won’t resemble a traditional playground, and the company building it hopes that’s just what will make it fun for children.
Nature Play Park is being built by the Talbot Group/Barkley Co., the primary developer of Barkley Village, with hopes that the park will help make the area feel like a neighborhood rather than simply a shopping center.
Construction is expected to start this spring and it will be completed in summer, Talbot Group president Stowe Talbot told the City Council’s Parks and Recreation Committee at a Jan. 10 meeting.
“The idea behind it is that the elements in the park will be made up of boulders and chunks of wood and logs and kind of natural elements,” Talbot said.
Its design is based on a similar playground in Portland, Ore., he said.
“Ropes, things to climb on — even the swing set will be made out of logs. I think it will be really unique and almost artistic,” Talbot said.
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Talbot Group will get $1.2 million in park impact fee credits for the project, which the company will maintain as a public park.
Nicole Oliver, director of the Parks and Recreation Department, said it was a “unique opportunity” to have a new city park built and maintained by a private company.
“I know it’s going to be very fun and popular,” with sand and a water feature too, Oliver said.
Some materials for the new park — boulders and large logs — have been delivered to the site west of the pond near Regal Barkley Village Cinema.
A connector trail will be built to walking/biking pathways into the Roosevelt neighborhood to the south, and to the Railroad Trail, part of the citywide Greenways trail system.
“We at Barkley try to make sure that as we develop out this neighborhood we want to make sure parks and open spaces and trails have a very significant role,” Talbot said.
That started with the Barkley Village Green, an open space between office buildings on Rimland Drive at the north end of Newmarket Street, where concerts and other events are held.
Another “pocket park” called Squiggly Park will be built near the Mercy Housing project now under construction, which will house the Whatcom Family YMCA’s Early Learning Center.
Talbot Group also built a shortcut connector from Barkley Boulevard to the popular Railroad Trail, making it easier for people who live in apartments along Newmarket Street to access the Greenways system.
Councilman Michael Lilliquist said Talbot is slowly creating an “urban village” for people to live, work, shop and play.
“What wasn’t there a dozen years ago I see being built piece by piece,” he said.
This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
