Bellingham moves forward with pond boardwalk/trail Greenways expansion
Construction is set to start in June on a long-awaited trail around Sunset Pond, adding a boardwalk, bridges and connections to other parts of Bellingham’s popular Greenways system.
City Council members voted unanimously Monday, April 28 to hire a contractor to build the $3.7 million project, which is funded with developer fees, the Greenways levy and a $1 million state recreation grant.
Nicole Oliver, director of the Parks and Recreation Department, told the council that construction could take up to two years.
“There’s not a ton of trail that needs to be built. But a lot of it is boardwalk,” Oliver said. “There are two bridges. It’s going to make a complete loop. I’m fondly referring to Sunset Pond as the Lake Padden of the North.”
When work is finished by early 2027, the Sunset Pond Trail will link to the Squalicum Creek Trail to the north and Sunset Drive to the south.
Those connections will provide a safer walking and biking route to the Barkley Village area for residents of the King Mountain and Irongate neighborhoods and for residents of the high-density apartment buildings near Sunset Village.
“This is a long time coming. It’s a pretty complicated project,” Oliver said. Several pieces of land had to be acquired, according to previous Bellingham Herald reporting.
At 21.5 acres, Sunset Pond was deeded to the city in 1978 from the Washington State Department of Transportation after Interstate 5 was finished, Oliver told The Herald in a text message.
The boardwalk is planned through wetlands on the east side of the pond, creating a 2.3 mile circle around the pond, connecting trails on its north and south sides. Bridges will cross an unnamed tributary and Squalicum Creek, which feeds Sunset Pond and then continues west to Bellingham Bay.
A spur off the southeast side of the pond will head toward a right-of-way on Racine Street to a lighted crossing on busy Sunset Drive, and then continue south toward Barkley Boulevard, where a trail leads to the movie theater complex and a connection to the Railroad Trail.
On the north side of Sunset Pond, the trail follows an abandoned railroad line and will eventually continue east to Hannegan Road.
