Royal City residents will be able to hit the beach and enjoy beach volleyball at Westminster Pier Park this weekend.
Construction of beach volleyball got underway Monday and is expected to wrap up Friday at the Timber Wharf section of the city's riverfront park.
"What is going in are two sand volley ball courts," said Dean Gibson, the city's director of parks, culture and recreation. "It is basically like the creation of a giant sandbox that you'd put in your backyard."
Last fall, the city consulted with the community about the type of activities residents wanted to see in the park. Places for group sports, amenities related to physical fitness, social gathering places and places to relax and reflect topped the wish list.
"There was a desire to have something on the wharf as quickly as we could," Gibson told The Record. "This beach volleyball was something we could implement relatively easy without too much muss or fuss."
Future elements being proposed for the Timber Wharf section are an onshore beachfront setting, which would feature sand, logs and beach umbrellas. A multi-use flat surface area for activities like group fitness classes and an area for street hockey are also among the plans for the Timber Wharf.
"All of this is really pending council's endorsement of the overall plan. If they do, we have a placeholder budget that is already in our capital plan," Gibson said. "We would go as far as that funding would allow us in terms of implementing different things."
The city envisions the activities being proposed on the Timber Wharf would be in place for five to 10 years.
"We have always worked with a time horizon of no less than five years, and possibly up to 10 years - probably a five-to-10 year time frame," he said. "The long-term goal is to complete the full master plan for Westminster Pier Park. I am sure that availability of funding from third parties like senior levels of government will most certainly be a factor in influencing those timelines."
Earlier this year, the city hired Worley Parsons to conduct an assessment of the Timber Wharf and determine the weight load capacity of that portion of the park. When the city built Westminster Pier Park, it included new pilings under the redeveloped section of the park but not the Timber Wharf.
"A lot of our planning was contingent on what that structural assessment provided for us," Gibson explained. "It really showed us, here are the areas where you have the greatest opportunity for doing things on the deck surface without incurring some concerns about what is going on below the deck. The plan has to some extent has had to take into account those kinds of considerations."
Gibson said the city has a concept plan about how different things will be accommodated and will be taking that to council in September.
"This is probably the first tangible piece of evidence coming out from all those consultation sessions," he said about the volleyball courts. "What has been happening over the course of the spring and early summer is we were taking those ideas and working with a staff group and a landscape architect and seeing how those various things might be able to be accommodated on the timber wharf section of the park itself."
