Work to begin soon on this new Bellingham park

Construction is set to begin on a new park in Bellingham’s Barkley Village Neighborhood in the coming weeks.

Squiggly Park will be on the corner of Rimland Drive and Manning Street, next to the new Mercy Housing affordable apartment development, Trailview.

The park will feature a meandering terraced trail, a shade structure and multiple mature trees, according to Talbot Group, the development company building out Barkley Village.

“We wanted to provide a space for someone to go and enjoy lunch from the commercial buildings, meet friends or take a break from walking through the village,” said Ryan Pflueger, Talbot Group’s vice president of construction, in a telephone interview with The Bellingham Herald.

Squiggly park won’t include a traditional children’s playground but it will feature some elements for kids to enjoy.

“The plan is to include a tree that has some lower growing branches that are robust enough to provide a little bit of a climbing feature for kids,” Pflueger told The Herald. “We’ll put some soft surfacing underneath, like woodchips or wood fiber.”

The inclusion of Squiggly park in the Barkley Village Master Plan is important, Pflueger said, because it helps break up the large structures.

“As we develop the village as a whole, we want to make sure that there are engaging spaces for the public — not just a series of buildings,” Pflueger told The Herald.

The park is also next to a multi-modal trail that facilitates alternative forms of transportation, such as biking and walking, through Barkley Village.

Construction will likely be complete in a few months, according to Pflueger.