Des Moines and SeaTac trail users will celebrate a milestone at the Des Moines Creek Trail on Wednesday, Oct. 6th, thanks to a $579,000 grant from the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program.
The Des Moines Parks and Recreation Department will formally open the 2.5-mile stretch of trail that will connect three parks at 1:30pm that day:
- The 70-acre Des Moines Creek Park
- The 22.5-acre Des Moines Beach Park Historic District and Tidelands
- The 14-acre Des Moines Marina
The public is welcome.
The Des Moines Creek Trail travels through old-growth forest and salmon spawning grounds, past two historic landmarks and a mountain bike facility, before ending at the waterfront. It connects Des Moines neighborhoods, recreation facilities and schools, SeaTac, Sea-Tac Airport, a future light rail station, and the South King County Regional Trail System to the Puget Sound in downtown Des Moines.
A Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program grant provided $579,038. The city of Des Moines contributed $589,960 in federal funding, cash, donations, and a voter-approved levy.
The Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition announced recently it will ask the state Legislature to allocate $100 million from the 2011 state capital construction budget to continue funding projects like the Des Moines Creek Trail waterfront connection. Projects funded out of the capital construction budget do not compete with teachers or social services, which are paid for out of the state operating budget.
“The Des Moines Creek Trail is a South King County treasure,” said Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines. “Programs like the WWRP provide critical funding for neighborhood parks and trails across Washington. Keeping this valuable program strong will give more communities the chance to complete vital projects that benefit everyone.”
The Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition was created in 1989 by former governors Dan Evans and Mike Lowry to protect state and local parks, preserve habitat for fish and wildlife, and to save working farms. The Program was created the following year to provide grants to worthy projects across the state. Each year, the Recreation and Conservation Office ranks projects based on support in the community, threat to the open space or habitat, and whether the project is shovel-ready.
Here are the event details:
WHAT: Re-opening of the Des Moines Creek Trail
WHEN: Wednesday, Oct. 6th, at 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Promontory at the entrance of Des Moines Beach Park, 22030 Cliff Ave. South. Parking is available in the Marina’s north parking lot.
Photo Courtesy Des Moines Parks and Recreation Department.
Wow you mean it only cost us $ 1,118,998 for the trail? Can we put a toll on it? The article should have mentioned riders will actually be going past three historic sights. I believe we can safely include all the chain link fencing surrounding the Beach Park Buildings because the fences certainly have been in place long enough to qualify as historic.
I will concede the trail is probably a great community asset but what a mess and rat hole the shacks at the Beach Park have been. Must the city continue to poor money into them? This project was started and there is NO money to finish the restoration. None, nada, zip. There is no business plan in place on what to do with buildings so why restore them? There are no bathrooms others then porta-potties. Someone told me the only plan in place is to hopefully rent them out for weddings and the like. Really? That should cover the cost. I guess it will give Council woman Carmen Scott some great photo ops. This is the same person who rallied to have the buildings declared historic in the first place.
I am willing to bet since the coffer dams recently installed for the trail projects already washed out in these most recent rains, we will have severe flooding at the Beach Park yet again this year. Any takers? Wait, was that my tax money floating away?