Community Environment Government

PenMet expanding Fox Island sandspit park

A Fox Island park will be growing and restoring.

PenMet Parks commissioners during their meeting Tuesday approved the purchase of two parcels abutting Tacoma DeMolay Sandspit Nature Preserve and gave the go-ahead on work to reclaim the shoreline.

The owner of parcels at 52 and 58 Island Blvd. in spring 2022 told PenMet it was interested in selling. Nearly three years later, a sales agreement was reached and funding secured. Parks Executive Director Ally Bujacich and David Petrich from property owner Fox Go Bye Bye, LLC of Tacoma signed the deal on Feb. 13, according to district documents.

PenMet is buying two waterfront properties to the west of Tacoma DeMolay Sandspit Park. Photo by Ed Friedrich

The board, without comment, voted 4-0 to approve the purchase. President Laurel Kingsbury was excused.

The properties will add 3.6 acres to the 5-acre park. The land is mostly wooded with steep slopes. It adds 265 feet of Puget Sound waterfront and offers westward views of Key Peninsula and the Olympic Mountains. The uplands will be kept in conservation and protected from development. Trails will be carved, but little infrastructure is planned, according to park documents.

Pierce County assessed the side-by-side parcels at a total of $2.3 million. Each includes a 760-square-foot cabin built in 1950 and valued in the $140,000s. PenMet plans to tear them down.

Grants to pay for most if not all

Pierce County Conservation Futures awarded PenMet Parks a $2.25 million grant to acquire the property. The parks district expects to receive a $511,000 state Recreation and Conservation Office grant to complete the sale. The grants would serve as matches for each other. Should the state funding fall through, Pen Met appropriated $303,000 in its capital budget for the purchase, according to park documents.

The property checks boxes in PenMet’s Parks, Recreation and Open Space plan, including public access to saltwater shoreline, passive recreation such as hiking trails, and protecting open space and shoreline that might otherwise be lost to development, Bujacich has said. It also expands park access in an area of need.

Pierce County Conservation District will replace an old bulkhead and restore the beach. Photo by Ed Friedrich

Earlier Tuesday, commissioners participated in a study session about final design for the park’s shoreline restoration. Pierce Conservation District (PCD) Shorelines Program Manager Mary Krauszer and Principal Engineer Jessica Coté of consultant Blue Coast Engineering remotely provided the update. Afterward, during the regular meeting, the board authorized Bujacich to sign an agreement with PCD to begin construction.

Remove bulkheads, restore slope

PCD is the lead agency in the project that primarily will remove about 600 feet of old concrete bulkhead from the 2,000-foot beach and restore a gradual slope between the beach and the uplands. Permitting has begun. Construction is expected to start in late summer or early fall, Krauszer said.

PCD, which acquired funding for a 2021 feasibility study and project design that began in 2023, is also responsible for construction costs. The project tops the list of state Recreation and Conservation Office grant requests, for $651,000.

“We’re feeling very comfortable we can fund the construction phase,” Krautzer said.

The 1960s-era bulkheads no longer function. Seawater goes over, around and through them and has scoured out the backfill, leaving a ledge. Removing them will reconnect the uplands to the water. Without the barriers, sediment will naturally slough off the hillside to the beach and be carried by the water to the spit, which has not been growing as it should. The slope will be replanted with natural vegetation, Coté said.

Restoring the natural shoreline and sediment processes will enhance habitat for young Chinook salmon and forage fish, while improving public access to the beach and Puget Sound, Krautzer said previously.

Rendering of final master plan, both Phases 1 and 2.

Uplands getting attention, too

That’s not all that is happening at the sandspit park. PenMet Parks is coordinating upland improvements with the PCD’s shoreline restoration.

A park master plan was completed last year. It features more parking, a new picnic shelter/pavilion, lawns, restrooms and a paved walkway to the beach. A design is at the 60% point and will wrap up in August. The documents will be submitted to Pierce County for a six-month permitting process. A bid request will tentatively be issued in spring 2026, with construction that summer and fall.

PenMet in February 2023 approved a $1.9 million budget for the master plan that includes $1.2 million going toward the highest priorities identified in the plan. With the total cost estimated at $2.75 million, the project will be broken into two phases. The parks district hasn’t decided what each phase will comprise.

PenMet, which formed in 2004, purchased the sandspit site in 2010 from Tacoma DeMolay, which used it as a camp.