Photo courtesy of Anchor QEA A rehabilitation of Percival Landing Park in Olympia required a cleanup of petroleum-contaminated soil.

Percival Landing Park is a popular waterfront park in the heart of downtown Olympia.

The park is named after a commercial steamship wharf built by Sam Percival in 1860. The site was rebuilt as a park between 1978 and 1988.

Designed for a 25-year life, most of the park’s facilities were in need of major rehabilitation by 2007, including some of the over-water walkways that had been closed due to structural safety concerns.

Olympia’s Parks, Arts and Recreation Department hired Anchor QEA to lead the 30 percent-level design and permitting of the entire facility. The city sought for the park and its structures to be energy efficient and low maintenance, to have a 50-year design life, and to accommodate a potential rise in sea level.

The project required waterside demolition, new waterfront construction, utility installations, street revisions, a new parking lot, and replacement of the existing public restroom and bathhouse. Complicating the new construction was the amount of buried material in the shoreline excavation area, including large deposits of petroleum-contaminated soil and a buried pipeline still full of fuel from a previous tank farm. This added the extra step of remediation of the site before construction could begin.

Despite these challenges — plus shorter work windows caused by tides and permit restrictions — the project was completed on time and on budget.

“This project sets the standard for future projects in Olympia and future projects in the region,” Olympia Mayor Doug Mah said. “It’s that good.”