Seaside’s Mill Pond plan presented

Published 5:24 am Monday, February 9, 2015

SEASIDE — A preliminary plan to enhance the experience of visiting the Mill Pond in Seaside will be presented at a community meeting at 6 p.m. March 4 at the Bob Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Avenue A.

A local committee that is working on a citywide natural history park, is suggesting that the Mill Pond area, on the south end of Seaside east of U.S. Highway 101, be developed in four phases.

Once the site of a logging operation, the 20-acre area, which contains two ponds, became known as the Mill Pond. It will be included in the natural history park, which is envisioned to stretch from north of Seaside to the south.

Melyssa Graeper, coordinator of the Necanicum Watershed Council, presented the Mill Pond plan to the Seaside Parks Advisory Committee Thursday night.

Graeper said the enhancements were suggested by those attending an open house at the Mill Pond site last August. They filled out a questionnaire that asked what people might want to see at the site.

Although a rudimentary path already meanders through the area, the proposed plan calls for enhancing it all the way around the pond, which lies behind the city’s Public Works building. Other suggested improvements include restrooms, a covered picnic shelter, a parking area, a handicapped-accessible bird blind, as well as a second bird blind across the pond, an observation tower, small playground and a historical interpretation kiosk.

“We want to leave the rest of it natural,” Graeper said.

Much of the area is surrounded by trees and blackberry and other bushes. Some of the bushes between the pond and Les Schwab Tires would remain for people to pick blackberries. Several of those answering the questionnaire said they often picked blackberries in the area, and they didn’t want to lose that opportunity, Graeper added.

The improvements would be spread out in each of the four phases, with clean-up and path building in the first phase and the possible acquisition of a few adjacent properties to enlarge the area in the fourth phase.

Grants to make the improvements may be available through local watershed councils and the state parks department, said Neal Wallace, Seaside Public Works director.

In addition to the community meeting March 4, the group plans to present the plan to the Seaside Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions clubs, the Seaside Chamber of Commerce and the Seaside Downtown Development Association.

Wallace, who is the city’s liaison for the parks advisory committee, called the plan, which has taken a few years to develop, “excellent work.”

“I know how hard it is to pull these things together,” Wallace said. “It makes me happy to see it after such a long time.”