West Arboretum "Tot Lot" Play Area Renovation

Summer 2023

July 19th at 10am: West Arboretum/Lynn Street Playground Opening celebration!

Join Seattle Parks and Recreation and our partners, the University of Washington Botanic Garden and the Arboretum Foundation as we celebrate the renovation of the Lynn Street Playground (West Arboretum Tot Lot). The morning will be full of fun with kids activities, lemonade, music and exploring the new play area.

Lynn St./West Arboretum Playground Celebration Poster with Details

To increase project efficiency, this project was bundled with two other play areas (Cal Anderson Park and Soundview Terrace) and put out to bid. We awarded the construction contract for all three projects to LW Sundstrom, Inc. This contractor is in high demand and currently working on completing several other Contracted Parks projects. Out of consideration of our partner Project Mangers we chose to delay issuing our Notice to Proceed to avoid constraints to this contractor's capacity to complete existing projects. We will be issuing the notice to proceed within the next 30-50 days and anticipate construction beginning at the end of first quarter or beginning of second quarter of 2023.

The current small play structure was installed in 1999 and is due for replacement. The site is often used as small gathering space for local groups, library programming, and as an entrance to the Arboretum and, of course fun play for kids. The site is very small, and we have developed three plans that will fit.   

The Montlake community provided early input on the Tot lot playground replacement project by reviewing options for the play area and taking an online survey. The project design team is reviewing the input to consider what is important to you at the tot lot play area.   

The new play equipment will be located within the existing enclosure. The concrete path around the play space will be repaired and existing benches will be kept.

View this short video of current conditions at the Tot Lot.