Houghtaling Field Parking Lot Design

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough is seeking the services of a qualified civil engineering firm to provide design for the Houghtaling Field Parking Lot project. This project will include design of a sidewalk connecting the two fields to the extant restroom facility sidewalk; parking lot design to be located north of the field, including clearing, grubbing, and grading; driveway upgrades from Thatcher Way to the proposed location of the new parking area, including a paving plan; and replacement of the stair running between the two fields and the upper playground.

Houghtaling Field was first constructed in 1984, using remaining undeveloped land north of the school, at a significant vertical difference from the school itself. The field was later expanded circa-2000 to provide a baseball backstop and install a restroom facility. The field was last updated in 2015, when the field grade was raised to reduce slope, and the ditch along the northerly perimeter excavated to improve drainage. Current uses include daytime use by Houghtaling Elementary School students, and evening and weekend use for t-ball and coach pitch baseball, and outdoor soccer practices for micro and 2-3 age groups.

The need for a parking lot was established during the 2019 Ketchikan Gateway Borough Sports Field Master Plan, when it was noted that sports participants park in the school playground, resulting in an unsafe interaction between parking field users and the kids in the playground.

The site's main drawback is its inaccessibility: while the restroom has a concrete sidewalk providing egress to its two entrances, there is effectively no accessible parking stall due to the excess grade of the driveway off Thatcher Way, and the parking surfacing is shot rock. In addition, there is no sidewalk providing an accessible route to combine the two sides of the field to the restrooms. The access driveway is also in poor condition, with no remaining gravel topping due to unrestrained drainage, revealing the large scale coarse aggregate base. Its steep grade is also partially the result of water and sewer mains running parallel to the access roadway alignment limiting room for rerouting. The staircase providing egress from the upper to lower fields merits replacement, as it dates to the construction of the field and exhibits rot throughout.