Washougal to update Hamllik Park, one of city’s oldest recreation spaces

Improvements are coming to Washougal's Hamllik Park. Clark County recently awarded the city of Washougal a $100,000 Community Development Block Grant to install new features and replace outdated, deteriorating and incomplete structures at the Addy Street park. "It's one of our older parks, so it would be lovely to get it to a level where it's more modernized," Jayne Lacey, the president of the city's park board of commissioners, told the Post-Record in 2020. "The park has great potential. It serves as a large part of the community on the east side of town, and has a lot of activities. The park board has been talking about (making improvements) there for quite some time. This has been a long time coming." The city will put the project up for bid this summer and hopes to complete construction by December, according to Wright. "September and October can be rainy months for the city, but all will be done to not delay the project," said Michelle Wright, the city's assistant public works director. "City staff are ready to take on this project, with the only anticipated delay being weather during construction months." City officials are considering adding a half-court basketball playing surface, improving the baseball field, installing an irrigation system, fixing the shelter roof, repairing and painting the restrooms, providing Americans With Disabilities access and repairing the asphalt trail. "We want to go out and work with the community and find out what kind of playground they would like to have and get their input," Wright said. "At the end of the day, it's the community's park, and we want to get as much feedback as we possibly can because our goal is to give the citizens what they want to see in their parks system. We want to make sure that we have amenities for the younger kids and also teenagers, and basketball seems like a really great way to be able to do that at Hamllik." The city is working to improve its other parks as well. Public works employees have poured concrete for new picnic tables, benches and grills, and installed new signs at every park. "One of the things that I noticed when I started looking at all the parks in our system (was that) it seemed like it had been a long time since we actually looked at the parks individually and did a condition assessment to see where they currently were and what kinds of things we needed to do to improve them or make sure they're as up to date as we possibly can (make them)," Wright said. "I made a huge laundry list of everything that I would do to refresh the parks and give them a new look and make sure they were as safe and accessible to people as we possibly could make them, and also give them a brand where we could update our signs and have a refreshed look." The city is also constructing plots for its new community garden, located at 2036 Main Street and set to open April 1. "The community garden has been asked for by the park board for at least the last two or three years, and it's very important to them, especially in that specific area to provide apartment (tenants the ability) to have gardens and grow their own vegetables," Wright said. "Especially with everything going on with COVID, it just seemed like a very important decision for the city to make. The goal is to put in a shed, a little play area, picnic tables, grills, and garden boxes, and provide a nice location for people to go to."

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