$3.65 million project funded through 2008 bond measure

What do skateboarders, gardeners and admirers of waterfowl in Beaverton have in common?

By the end of the year, they will share a new place to skate, plant and commune with nature right in the heart of the city.

Commenced in March, extensive renovations to Evelyn Schiffler Park are well under way. If all goes well, neighbors and visitors by December will be able to enjoy a state-of-the-art contoured skate park, a 20-plot community garden area and a 250-foot boardwalk leading through a 2.4-acre wetland area.

Those are just the more prominent improvements being made to the park, which is accessed through Southwest Erickson and Bonnie Brae Avenue and Berthold streets. The $3 million project will also include two wooden pavilions — one 40-feet in diameter and another 20 feet; two half-court basketball hoops, including an 8-foot hoop for kids; two playground areas with elaborate new equipment; a memorial garden area; and additional parking off the side streets.

The Schiffler Park upgrades — along with another in-progress renovation at the donated Paul and Verna Winkelman Park on Cooper Mountain — is among several Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District neighborhood and community park projects funded primarily through a $100 million bond measure district voters passed in 2008.

Surveying progress on the park — which has been closed to the public since work started last spring — on a recent crisp, sunny fall morning, Gary Keck, park district bond planning manager, said the green space, established as a district community park in the mid-1970s, had gotten “worn down, out of date.”

Despite the long closure during the entire, sun-soaked summer of 2012, Keck said most neighbors he’s heard from indicate the extensive improvements will be more than worth the wait.

“This is a 10-acre park, with a lot of elements. They’re all excited,” he said of neighbors and other regular park users. “They’ve seen how we’ve been working out here since March. When they see us out here making progress, (neighbors) know the workers are doing what they can to make a better facility.”

Local residents provided significant input into the park’s master planning process through a series of open houses.

Comprising 20 plots of 12 square feet and four plots in raised planters, the community gardens will help fulfill what district leaders call a steadily growing clamor for public planting space.

“There is quite a demand in the district for community gardens,” said Bob Wayt, park district spokesman. “Bringing another one on will help us meet the demand.”

Near the garden area, the larger of the two new pavilions is being built in one of the newer sections of the park, a .71-acre parcel the district purchased from Metro regional government in 2007. Funding for the pavilions came through a state water conservation grant, Keck said.

The park’s upgraded gravel pathway winds past most of the park’s new and improved features, including three, triangle-shaped decks that serve as viewing platforms along the boardwalk. The contoured basins in the low-slung wetland were designed to provide bird and wildlife habitat while slowing and filtering runoff water.

“We want it to hold water and slow it down before it goes gushing into the city drainage system,” Keck said.

Those looking for more exciting pursuits than viewing birds and nature should find ample stimulation at the newly constructed skate spot. Designed with the input of local skateboarding enthusiasts and built by Lincoln City-based Dreamland, the roundly contoured concrete structure comes complete with metal rails, steps and ramps for shredders of all ages to enjoy.

“They came in and built this and did a really good job,” Keck said.

When the remaining projects are completed, Wayt said the park should be a crown jewel of Central Beaverton.

“Those who walk this park are going to be really pleased what they see,” he said.