Construction of unique park under way in Aloha

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David Evans and Associates has joined forces with the Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District and the Beaverton School District to build a unique park in Aloha. The Southwest Quadrant Community Park will be the first in Oregon designed to accommodate both able-bodied and disabled users without stairs or ramps.

“We had to look across the country (to find) parks like this,” THPRD senior park planner and project manager Tim Bonnin said.

The park will include fields for baseball, soccer and lacrosse as well as tennis courts and protective shelters. Though private funding sources are helping pay for the $14 million project, it’s receiving $10.6 million from a $100 million bond approved by voters in 2008.

“It’s one of the largest public investments that we have made in such a diverse community,” Bonnin said.

The team planning the park on a 22-acre site at Southwest 170th Avenue and Farmington Road sought to make it accessible to all users without including ramps or stairs. Plus, all playing fields needed to be level. That was a significant engineering challenge because the site’s north side is 27 feet higher than its south side. Crews moved more than 50,000 cubic yards of dirt from one end of the site to the other.

“This was a huge grading project,” said Todd Marcum, regional manager for land development at David Evans and Associates. “We had to deal with that without having any steps throughout the site.”

P&C Construction began work on the project in 2016, and was hampered by soil holding water from heavy winter rains. The issues prompted crews to work six-day weeks to stay on schedule.

“Getting the soil to dry out was a major problem,” Bonnin said. “They had to aerate the soil constantly.”

Designers also had to find a suitable synthetic material for the playing fields.

“The surface had to be hard enough to be accessible by wheelchair and still soft enough that people wouldn’t get hurt when they fall,” Marcum said.

Then benches and shelters had to be positioned so that they would provide shade for park users.

“There are people who can’t be out in the sun that we needed to accommodate, or just people who are out for picnics,” Bonnin said. “We also needed places for caregivers to be able to use the shelters.”

Once the design challenges were solved, funding and coordination had to be sorted out. Some of the land was owned by THPRD, some was owned by the Beaverton School District and more land had to be purchased from private owners.

“It went through land use planning, permits, stakeholder meetings, neighborhood task force (meetings),” Marcum said. “It was in 2014 that we began this process. THPRD did a great job with user stakeholders.”

Despite the challenges, the park is expected to be open before the start of the 2017-18 school year.

“It is going to be the crown jewel of the bond program,” said Bob Wayt, director of communications and outreach for THPRD. “It will be used by athletes with special needs and all abilities. This has been a labor of love.”