Morgan Junction Park's New Lawn Gets One Open Winter Before the Digging Starts

The grass along California Ave SW at Morgan Junction is open to the public right now because the ground underneath it turned out to be harder to build on than anyone planned. Seattle Parks took down the Phase I fencing on April 29, 2026. The lawn stays open until Phase II construction begins in 2027, and that work is expected to start in late summer.

So the 0.47-acre addition is getting a winter as plain, unfinished grass. At SW Morgan St, the fenced lot at the old Morgan Junction substation is on nearly the same schedule. Around September 2027, one fence on this corner is set to come down about when the other goes back up.

Why the lawn is open at all

The open lawn is a side effect of delay. Seattle Parks says the Phase I soils work "was more extensive than anticipated, impacting subsequent project phases." From early 2025 through spring 2026, the department and its design team value-engineered the project so a scaled-down Phase II could go ahead. Neighbors saw the updated schematic design at an open house on May 13, 2026.

That redesign needed time, and the hydroseeded lawn fills that time. The seeding stops short of Eddy Street. Parks says it is still working with other city departments on right-of-way requirements, drainage and street improvement plans along California Avenue. None of that has to be settled for people to use the grass. All of it has to be settled before anyone can build there.

What Parks described under the site

The most detailed account of the ground beneath the park came at the Morgan Community Association's fall meeting on October 21 at The Kenney, led by MoCA president Deb Barker. The West Seattle Blog report on that meeting records Parks project manager Trae Yang going through the risks one by one.

• A culvert with no paper trail. A culvert turned up under California Avenue, beneath the planned skate-dot site, and Yang said documentation for it had been hard to find. It appears to date from a time when a bridge crossed a ravine there. She said her construction sequencing is meant to keep the culvert from becoming a problem.
• Soils under the skate-dot parcel. A geotechnical report showed the soils there "are not as good as we hoped," and Parks is still working out what that means for the design.
• Possible contamination. Digging could turn up pockets the earlier work missed. Yang said the project has "a pretty healthy contingency" set aside for that.
• A storm-main extension. Yang said she found a funding source for it. It pays by reimbursement, so the city does the work first and recovers the money afterward.
• Eddy Street. That question had not been settled as of the meeting.

West Seattle Blog quoted Yang's summary of where things stand:

"We're not going to know until we dig."

For now, that ravine and its buried crossing sit under a lawn anyone walking along California can use this winter.

The price problem the lawn can't wait out

At the same meeting, Parks' Olivia Reed said the project is on schedule and on budget and is moving toward its 60 percent design milestone. The estimated costs West Seattle Blog reported were $1.25 million for the north parcel and $720,000 for the south parcel, where the skate-dot goes. Parks later clarified that those estimates are higher than what is currently budgeted.

Yang called construction pricing volatile: "Everything could change tomorrow and we could see double the cost." Under city rules, Parks can't buy materials such as concrete now and store them, because "fixing construction pricing is something we're not allowed to do." That means the open winter costs something. Every month between now and late summer 2027 is a month in which the bids could change.

The skate-dot has separate money and a set footprint

The skate-dot is paid for differently. At the end of 2025, the Seattle City Council approved a Council Budget Action that added $700,000 from the Park and Recreation Fund for the small skatepark. That money sits outside the main project budget, so none of it came out of the park expansion. Parks says the funding keeps the skate-dot on the same schedule as the rest of the park instead of pushing it to a later phase.

The community partner is the Morgan Junction All Wheels Association, which worked with Grindline on a 1,500-square-foot design for the park addition. In the March 2026 MJAWA update, the group said most of the original design features, including the all-wheels area, were kept. The play area and the hilltop feature swapped places, and the skate-dot might move south to make room for an Eddy Street easement. The poor soils Yang described are under this parcel. In October, Parks said the skate-dot implementation plan would be added to the project website soon.

The park's neighbors are part of the conversation too. Terri Sink, co-owner of Beveridge Place Pub, told the meeting she hopes as many native plantings as possible can stay: "We look forward to being partners on the project." Parks is also considering a mid-block crossing because it expects more people to use the park once it's finished.

On SW Morgan St, the same 2027 schedule

Seattle City Light is building an eight-charger lot on the former Morgan Junction substation property at 4118 SW Morgan St. Anyone with an electric vehicle will be able to use it for a fee, and the utility plans to plant trees on the site. City Light's September 2026 update says a structural design issue stopped work in July. That issue has been resolved, and the city has ended its contract with the original contractor over performance problems. The utility now expects the station to be finished by September 2027. West Seattle Blog described the change as a delay of another year.

At the October MoCA meeting, City Light's Lizzy Kay and Grant Barton said the utility is working with the company that bonded the original contractor to decide next steps, and that the work won't go out for a full rebid. All eight chargers will be owned and operated by City Light, with no Tesla chargers. Until work resumes, City Light is checking on the site periodically and wants to hear about any problems neighbors see.

If both schedules hold, fencing comes off the substation lot about when it goes up along California. The current setup, with the lawn open and the EV lot closed, only lasts until both projects reach their next milestone.

Dates to keep from here

1. This winter through summer 2027: the expanded lawn stays open to the public until Phase II construction begins.
2. Quarterly: City Light has said it will post EV lot updates on its project page.
3. January 20, 2027: the next quarterly meeting of the Morgan Community Association. The in-person location hasn't been set, and remote attendance will be offered.
4. Late summer 2027: Phase II park construction is expected to start, including the skate-dot. Updates will be posted on the Engage Seattle Parks project page.
5. September 2027: City Light's target for opening the eight-charger station.

The corner outside West Seattle Thriftway at California and Fauntleroy will look different in a year. Until then, the lawn above the old ravine is open.

At The City Team, we follow projects like these because they shape the blocks around Seaview and Morgan Junction for years. If you'd like to talk about how the park addition or the EV lot could affect your street, we'd be glad to schedule a consultation.