SEQUIM — Walkers and bicyclers who have patiently waited for the Olympic Discovery Trail stretch to reopen east of the city of Sequim’s water reclamation demonstration park will see the trail reopen Sunday.

Craig Stevenson, Sequim Family Advocates president, said a barrier installed to protect work on the future Albert Haller Playfields for youth soccer and multiuse events will be moved by volunteers Saturday.

That will open the new 900-foot trail link that Lakeside Industries of Port Angeles paved with asphalt Monday.

George Peabody, Lakeside Industries manager, said the company laid about 200 tons of asphalt.

The stretch runs the full length of the 13-acre multiuse field’s on its west side to a new, graveled 100-car parking lot for those using the field and attending events at the James Center band shell.

“We expect it will be summertime when it will be safe to run around on,” Stevenson said of the grass sprouting on the Haller Playfield after it was seeded about two weeks ago.

The new trail connects with existing paved trail.

“For the first time, somebody can walk all around that parcel of land,” Stevenson said.

Before work started more than four months ago, the group detoured the nearby segment of Olympic Discovery Trail around the project until completion.

After more than two years of fundraising that collected $220,000 in cash donations, Sequim Family Advocates, a group formed in 2008 to raise money to expand Sequim’s worn and limited number of playfields, broke ground on the multiuse playfields west of Rhodefer Road.

Surfacing plan

The gravel is a precursor to chip-seal surfacing the road when money is available to the city.

Work on the new playfields began in July, and the temporary barrier went up.

The barrier will be moved to the other side of the new trail stretch to protect the new grass, Stevenson said.

Seton Construction of Jefferson County this week was grading and graveling the North Rhodefer Road that runs north and south along the east edge of Carrie Blake Park, which will improve access to the park, the new playfields and the water reclamation demonstration park.

Donations

While Lakeside Industries donated between $15,000 and $20,000 in asphalt for the trail, DelHur Industries of Port Angeles donated $20,000 worth of gravel for the new parking lot, according to Stevenson.

DelHur controls the Haller quarry off River Road that produced the gravel and was once owned by Albert Haller, the new playfields’ namesake.

It was an Albert Haller Foundation grant of $105,000 that lifted Sequim Family Advocates to meet its fundraising goal for the fields project.

Additional donations of work and materials total more than $150,000.

Primo Construction of Carlsborg has installed curbing for the new parking lot.

Sequim City Band, which performs at the James Center band shell at the demonstration park, joined with Sequim Family Advocates as a partner in building the parking lot that the two groups will share for field events and music performances.

The project kicks up the community’s inventory of youth soccer and general recreation fields, lessening the dependence and burden on the Sequim School District’s beaten-up and overused grounds.

Besides soccer, the fields will be used for flag football, lacrosse and other community events and activities.

At least 1,000 children are anxious to play on the five large and three small new soccer fields, Stevenson said.

________

Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.