Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
It has been decades in the making for the City of Olympia to develop a park that features a fully accessible soccer field.
Soon, the Yelm Highway Community Park will allow the community to enjoy amenities such as pickleball courts, soccer fields and much more.
According to Laura Keehan, the City of Olympia’s parks planning and design manager, the Yelm Highway Community Park currently sits at 60 percent design in phase one. She anticipates construction of the park beginning at the start of 2026 and hopes to see an opening follow later in the year.
“It’s a community park property that is planned for a number of park amenities, including rectangular fields. Because it’s such a large property, it will be a phased park development,” Keehan told the Nisqually Valley News on Friday, Feb. 21. “The first phase, which is what we’re working on right now, will include one full-sized lit synthetic turfed rectangular field. That can host soccer, lacrosse, rugby, football, ultimate frisbee — anything that uses a rectangular field.”
She added Yelm Highway Community Park, which will be found at 3545 Yelm Highway SE in Olympia, is an 83-acre property and will include other community amenities such as 13 pickleball courts. One court will be more accessible for community members in wheelchairs, Keehan said.
The park will also feature a playground for younger community members to enjoy, along with an off-leash dog park, two full-sized basketball courts, and a small park maintenance facility. One of the highlights of the park will be a soccer mini-pitch with a unique backstory.
“(The mini-pitch) is a project we are partnering with the Sounders Raise Foundation for, which is the foundation arm of the Sounders soccer team. We’ll build this mini-pitch for a smaller-sized, more informal pickup game,” Keehan said. “Those are the main park features, recreational features, that will be included in the first phase. The full buildout of the park will include some other amenities such as four more additional soccer fields, and some other uses like a community garden, skatepark, bike park, a sprayground and another small playground.”
According to Keehan, the City of Olympia hasn’t developed a new community park since the 1980s. With the development of the Yelm Highway Community Park, it will be the first public park in the Olympia Parks System to include a rectangular field for sports like football, soccer, rugby and more.
“This has been a longstanding community need to have a community park that was large enough to have soccer fields. It’s very exciting. This is decades in the making to finally be able to have a soccer field in our parks system,” she said. “The city purchased the majority of the property in 2018 and launched a park master plan development process with the community in 2019. That planning process with the community took several years, and we’re at now that we have an approved master plan for the full park development.”
According to Keehan, the project will be funded by a number of grants, including support from the Sounders Raise Foundation. She said the Thurston County Pickleball Club has made a donation toward the courts at the site, and the PARC Foundation has also contributed to the development of the new park.
“There’s a number of donations and grants from state and federal (levels). The City of Olympia Park Fund will be used to develop the park.” Keehan said. “The funding, part of it will be part of the city’s debt package. That is going to be something that goes through the city council. That is upcoming this spring.”
