As the days lengthen and the weather warms, Enumclaw residents may be happy to learn that several parks, and the local pool, are either currently receiving upgrades or plan to receive extensive improvements in the near future.

Michelle Larson, the city’s parks and recreation director, laid out what’s been going on at the Farmer’s Park — home to the local disc golf course — McFarland Park, Montgomery Park, and the Enumclaw Pool in a March 8 interview.

DISC GOLF TEE PADS, MAPS

The Farmer’s Park disc golf course is getting a few upgrades to make the run more accessible for both beginning and veteran players.

The Pierce County Disc Golf Players Association proposed creating the course back in 2016, telling the Enumclaw City Council that they would be in charge of all designing, funding, installing, and maintaining of the area.

But according to Chris Waugh, who worked with the PCDPA at the time, said that the park ended up being too far away for the association to put much energy into it, leaving local players (and the city) to keep the course — with its bare-bones baskets and astroturf tee-pads — alive.

Fast forward six years, and the White River Disc Golf Association, based out of Auburn, has stepped up to take ownership of the course, and made plans to replace the astroturf tee-pads with concrete, add course maps to detail each hole for players, and install a large sign promoting the course.

“It’s all pretty exciting, to have a volunteer organization provide this for our park system,” Larson said.

The project is expected to cost about $8,000. According to Larson, the Enumclaw City Council gave the WRDGA $5,000 to fund the upgrades, leaving the association to raise the other $3,000 through their club and various sponsorships from local businesses.

Marty Smith, who is spearheading the project, said he hopes all the upgrades will be completed by the end of April, just in time for the course to open back up for organized games, tournaments, and other activities.

“The course is becoming much more defined now,” he said in a March 11 interview. “The long-term plan for the park is to continue to develop it as a first-rate disc golf course, similar to what we have at Gaffney’s Grove in Maple Valley.”

For those unfamiliar with disc golf, imagine regular golf but with — you know — frisbees, with the goal of getting your disc from the tee-pad to the basket in as few throws as possible.

Smith said the game has low levels of physical activity like walking, moderate arm movements, and back twists, which are good for seniors like him, but Waugh added that many players enjoy the mental aspects of the game.

For example, players could just pick up a regular frisbee to play, but those who are really into the sport often use several discs, depending on the situation they’re facing — driver discs, which are optimized for long-distance throws, but require more skill to throw accurately; mid-range discs, which have a shorter range than drivers, but have better control; and putters, which are the most accurate of the three disc types, and are mainly used for those final shots into the basket.

In addition to the kinds of discs you can use, there are also different throwing techniques to consider when playing: the traditional backhands of forehands, of course, but also the hatchet (throwing the disk nearly perpendicular to the ground); the “thumber” (where you place your thumb on the inside of the disc’s rim); the roller (as it’s name suggests, the disc is rolled on the ground); the baseball or grenade (throwing the disc upside down); the turbo-putt (meant for extremely short shots that need ultimate accuracy); and the chicken-wing (which is an extremely difficult and stylized throw not worth detailing in a news article).

“You’ve really… got to figure out every shot,” Waugh said. “It’s a thinking-person’s game. It’s just like golf, but you’re using different equipment.”

If you want to get involved in disc golf, Smith said regular Friday Night Doubles will be starting up mid-April (you must bring your own equipment). The cost of the event is $10, with some money going toward the White River Disc Golf Association and course maintenance, but the majority is put into a pot for the winner of the event.

To get updates about events at the Enumclaw disc golf course, visit the Farmer’s Park Disc Golf Course Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/466843418517780.

PICKLEBALL AT MCFARLAND

Fans of pickleball should be excited for what’s happening at McFarland Park at the north end of Enumclaw’s city limits.

According to Larson, the Enumclaw City Council budgeted a pickleball course to replace the poorly-maintained basketball “court” four or five years ago, but other plans got in the way.

“Other projects came up, and costs got [higher], so it got put on the back burner,” Larson said. “We kept rolling it over in each budget cycle, and we finally, this past year, had one of our engineers do the construction drawings for that, so that we can bid it.”

Costs indeed skyrocketed, and the city council approved a budget amendment during the Feb. 28 meeting, increasing the money allocated to the project from $25,000 to $79,000.

With a budget in place, Larson said the city plans to go out for bid sometime this month, with the hope of completing construction this summer.

“Unfortunately, they won’t be that sports surfacing we have over at Garrett [Park]; it’ll be concrete,” she added. “Regardless, it’ll be a really fun place to play pickleball, and it will add a little bit to the frontage of that park, and get rid of that ugly asphalt area.”

PLAYGROUNDS, IMPROVED FENCING AT MONTGOMERY

West of downtown, Montgomery Park has already received some repairs to the baseball field’s dugout, backstop, and perimeter fencing.

“The fencing was really bad,” Larson said. “It was all curled up, and the [fence] posts were really old.”

The fencing has also been painted black, like the fence at the local dog park.

But most folks — or, at least, younger children — will likely be more thrilled to hear that the two playgrounds (which Larson said are at least four decades old) are being replaced.

“We have just got the equipment ordered, and it is scheduled to be here on the 25th of April,” Larson said, adding that installation should be complete by early May.

Overall, the full cost of this project was originally expected to come in around $235,000, she continued, but the city was able to shave several tens of thousands of dollars off that estimation to around $195,000.

“The major decrease was with regard to the dugout and the backstop, because we did not have to replace the posts,” Larson said. “That saved a lot of money, because they didn’t have to go in and dig the posts out, get new posts, and install the new posts.”

This is what the Enumclaw City Council envisions how the local pool will be improved in the future, as money becomes available. The pool will hopefully receive a $1.2 million grant from King County, and matched by the city, to improve the entryway, build a party/community room, and upgrade bathrooms. Image courtesy city of Enumclaw

PHASE 1 AT THE POOL: UPGRADED ENTRYWAY, NEW PARTY ROOM

Last, but certainly not least, is the expectation that the Enumclaw pool will begin a long-awaited expansion project.

A little bit of history first.

The pool used to be run by King County, but was turned over to the city in 2003. At the same time, the county also gave the city run of the Enumclaw golf course (which was then leased to a private operator).

The idea was to use golf course revenue to pay for pool operations, supplemented by a 2003 voter-approved levy.

However, the golf course steadily made less and less money, and by 2017, pool expenses exceeded the revenue brought in by the levy, leaving with the city council with a tough decision — should the city continue to run a pool? And if so, how will it be funded?

To answer those questions, the council put together a community committee to examine if the pool continues to be a valuable resource to locals and visitors and what patrons would like to see be improved at the facility, as well as two professional pool analyses; the first to examine what immediate repairs need to be made, and the second to give further estimates on how much additional improvements or upgrades could cost.

In short, the committee determined in 2018 that, yes, the pool remained a regional asset, and the majority of people who participated in an online survey indicated they wanted to bring the pool up to code and move forward with adding additional features and upgrades like a slide, hot tub area, and party room.

The committee recommended increasing pool rates to keep with operating costs; make the most critical repairs when they’re identified; seek county and state grants to cover capital improvements costs; and, potentially, putting to the public the option of creating a pool taxing district that expanded beyond Enumclaw’s borders to include other nearby cities and unincorporated areas.

Over the last several years, the council has raised pool use rates and approved major repairs noted by one of their official pool analysis; the repairs, which included replacing the pool deck and some electrical systems, corrosion in the drains, clogged plumbing, and more, were completed by January 2021. Initial repair cost estimates came in around $630,000, but additional repairs that were discovered during work increased the cost to about $700,000.

Discussion on creating a taxing district, however, has not yet begun.

With those major repairs out of the way, the council then turned to the second pool analysis as a guidelines for how the city wants to proceed with the facility in the future.

In short, their options were “do nothing”, and only address major repairs as the arrive; keep repairing the pool and add some low-cost features to the pool, but keep it simple; get underway with a major modernization and completely revamp the building and install new, energy-efficient systems; and build a whole new pool.

According to Larson, the council hasn’t officially chosen any of these options, though they are aiming for a major modernization (which had an estimated price tag of $7 million) as funds became available.

In fact, some money does appear to be coming the city’s way for what’s been deemed Phase 1 of the modernization project.

A King County committee overseeing grant applications for the county’s Parks, Recreation, Trails and Open Space Levy, as well as the county’s Executive Office, has officially approved Enumclaw’s ask of $1.2 million for the pool.

But the King County Council still has to approve the grant, and it could take a few months for the item to get put on its agenda, Larson said. Additionally, the grant will require the city to pony up it’s own $1.2 million, meaning the city council has some budgeting to do before designing begins, let alone getting shovels in the ground.

Assuming everything goes swimmingly, Phase 1 construction could begin in 2023, Larson said; planned improvements include revamping the entryway, build a new community/party room, transform the existing restroom and janitor area into two small family changing rooms and a non-gendered restroom, and various ADA upgrades to the parking lot, restrooms, locker rooms, and showers.

Plans for Phase 2 include building an exterior patio and an outdoor splash pad on the eastern end of the pool building, and Phase 3 calls for installing a leisure pool and therapy/spa pools on the west side.

Updated construction cost estimates, factoring in 2021 variables, put a $2 million price tag on Phase 1; $600,000 for Phase 2; and another $6 million for Phase 3, for a total of $8.5 million for the entire project.