Lincoln Park deal is a ‘go’

groundbreaking -- Pacific University sets Tuesday ceremony at city-owned park

By John Schrag

The Forest Grove News-Times, Feb 28, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

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Pacific University officials, who just got the go-ahead to build an athletic complex in Lincoln Park, aren’t letting any turf grow under their feet. They hope to fence off the park and get their contractor’s construction trailer on site later this week.

“We’d be out there tonight if we could,” Ken Schumann, Pacific’s athletic director, said Monday after the Forest Grove City Council authorized the city manager to sign a pair of agreements which have been in the works for nine months.

An official groundbreaking ceremony has been scheduled for next Tuesday on the north side of the Pacific Athletic Center, which abuts the south end of the park (see box).

The unanimous council vote paves the way for Pacific to spend more than $6 million to turn the park into a world-class athletic facility, complete with a nine-lane, Olympic-quality track ringing a FieldTurf multi-purpose soccer and lacrosse field, plus brand new baseball and softball complexes with permanent grandstand seating, press boxes and other amenities.

Schumann said that if plans proceed as expected, the track, turf and walking trail will be opened to the public this fall. The stadium and natural grass fields will follow in 2008.

“We’ve got to wait for the grass to grow,” he said.

The only glitch in the project occurred last month, when the university was unable to purchase 3.1 acres of private land abutting the north boundary of the park. As a result, the city and university had to find a new home for three recreation fields that had been planned there.

Both sides, with the city council’s blessing, have settled on Thatcher Park, an undeveloped city-owned parcel that Forest Grove officials have long wanted to turn into a park.

The city estimates it would cost $1.3 million to put the recreation fields there. Pacific, however, wants to conduct its own study before agreeing to a dollar amount.

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