Meeting recreational and stormwater needs in Washington

Landscape architecture and planning firm GCH have designed the largest park in Tehaleh, Pierce County, Washington, offering an eight hectare amenity accessible by foot, bike, car and shuttle.

Sited along the primary east-west corridor of the Tehaleh Phase 1 community, Discovery Park will eventually include a community centre with gathering and gardening spaces, pool, event lawn, integrated native animal habitat, pavilion, lake, splash pad, trails, STEAM design features, an outdoor classroom, and amphitheatre.

Discovery Park in Tehaleh, Washington. Image credit - Meghan Montgomery from Built Work Photography.

GCH worked with Newland Communities to develop a park that met the needs of the community’s multigenerational residents and the adjacent Tehaleh Heights Elementary. The park also serves as the primary stormwater facility for the Tehaleh community.

Discovery Park is immediately surrounded by neighbourhoods representing the range of Tehaleh’s multi-generational residents. Its primary pathway system and connections to the school and surrounding neighbourhoods are designed to be universally accessible. The 12-foot-wide primary loop trail can be used by cyclists, runners and walkers.

The park offers an eight hectare amenity accessible by foot, bike, car and shuttle. Image credit - Meghan Montgomery from Built Work Photography.

The park is built around a regional storm water management facility, providing 480-acres of upland development with water quality treatment, and infiltration for an upland basin of 1,150-acres.

The storm water facility is composed of a wet pond and dry cells - the wet pond serving as a settling basin for contributing runoff, and the dry infiltration cells handling overflows from the wet pond, capable of handling up to 113 acre-feet during storm events.

Image credit - Meghan Montgomery from Built Work Photography.

Rain gardens located within the parking lot provide water quality treatment, utilising a soil mix and plant palette designed to filter pollutants from the parking lot runoff.

Discovery Park includes environmental education opportunities, such as a boulder inscribed with a word search game alluding to storm water systems. An outdoor classroom and informal gathering spaces are provided for a nearby elementary school, and trail markers and signage describe the stormwater system, local ecology, and bat and bird habitat.

The park also serves as the primary stormwater facility for the Tehaleh community. Image credit - Meghan Montgomery from Built Work Photography.

Planting incorporates evergreen, deciduous and shade trees to define spaces throughout the property. 75% of the planted spaces include mounded areas to assist with storm water management.

They are sown with native grasses or planted with native and drought-resistant plants, and create a habitat for wildlife. Unirrigated in summer, they will not need any long-term irrigation and require minimal maintenance.

Discovery Park includes environmental education opportunities. Image credit - Meghan Montgomery from Built Work Photography.

Higher mounded areas will stand out in the summer months due to their colourful vegetation. Their lanes were seeded with a drought-tolerant seed mix which naturally repels Canada Geese, an introduced spices that are capable of overwhelming the park’s ecosystem.

A series of snags, root wads, logs, bird houses and bat houses have been organised along the trail according to the needs of various species. Bats and birds assist with pollination and seed dispersal, as well as controlling mosquitoes.