If everything falls into place, a central community park in Redmond will unveil an elaborate new play complex before 2015, a date that marks 25 years after its existing playground was installed.

Assisting the city effort to install an all-ages, all-abilities playground is a $210,000 grant recently received from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, which pushed the Sam Johnson Park project to within $100,000 of its $500,000 goal.

The condition of the park’s current playground came to the forefront in February 2012 when a local mother, Dalia Zimmerman, concerned about peeling paint on the play structure, used a home-test kit for lead and contacted the media to bring attention to the aging playground. A follow-up laboratory test showed no hazardous lead content, but subsequent meetings between local parents and the city resulted in a renewed effort to replace the 20-year-old play structure. The city is contributing $90,000 from its parks fund.

The city is accepting proposals until Aug. 30 for design and installation of the new playground on the existing site, although it is expected to be about five times larger, according to Heather Richards, community development director for the city of Redmond.

The concept, developed with the help of a stakeholders group, Friends of Sam Johnson Park, includes soft landing pads and ramps for wheelchairs. A tot lot with manipulative toys and a crawling zone is included, along with imaginative play areas for preschoolers, climbing, sliding and zip-line areas for school-age kids and both bocce and basketball courts.

The new play area has been conceived to complement and reflect its environment, with a Monkey Face-like climbing structure, a shade pergola and rock walls to mimic the Dry Canyon. A state-of-the-art landing pad will replace the bark chips under the play structures, and most elements will be accessible to all abilities.

The nearly 9-acre Sam Johnson Park, located in the central portion of Redmond’s Dry Canyon, was slowly developed after the family of its namesake donated land in the 1980s. Sam Johnson was a former Redmond mayor and Oregon congressman as well as a founding member of Redmond Kiwanis 76 years ago.

“We have a long connection with that park,” said Dan Tippy, club vice president.

Redmond Kiwanis Club raised funds for both the existing Sam Johnson playground and a large picnic pavilion in the 1990s. A few years later, the city tennis courts were relocated to Sam Johnson from various locations, but little has been added to the park since.

Richards described the park project as a true grass-roots community effort, with input from public forums, surveys and partner organizations.

“The final design of this effort is a collaboration of this community and is representative of Redmond’s spirit of working together, caring for each other and promoting family,” she said in a news release after the grant was announced.

Kiwanis members have been soliciting funds for more than a year, approaching local businesses and individuals for tax-deductible donations.

“We’re still fishing,” said Redmond Kiwanis member Gary Ollerenshaw. He joined the club in the middle of the efforts to raise funds for and build the pavilion, back in the late 1990s. “I get excited every time I talk about this project — it’s really something for the community to hang its hat on.”

He estimates that club members are responsible for soliciting about $100,00 of the funds raised thus far.

While the project is still in fundraising mode, the city feels confident enough to begin the process of looking for a contractor, with the goal of a spring 2014 opening, Richards said. Two grant applications are still under consideration, and businesses continue to come forward with donations, she added.

“The design concept was done in such a way that, if we don’t meet our goal, we can trim (the playground features) by that much,” Richards said.

Redmond Public Works staff will be able to do site prep for the project, leveraging the cost of the project, she added, as well as complete the work to reroute the Dry Canyon trail to the west, allowing sufficient room for the playground and community events such as the summer Music on the Green concerts.

According to Richards, the city is negotiations with neighboring property owners for an easement that would allow the 10-foot-wide canyon trail to travel to the extreme northern end of Sam Johnson and out to Southwest 15th Avenue adjacent to the Spudbowl.

Sam Johnson Park

www.samjohnsonpark.com

Information and design concepts

Donations are tax deductible