Heritage Park & Hops Alley

Heritage Park Design and Alley Activation Area

The north point of Reuben A. Knoblauch Heritage Park and Hops Alley are getting updated in 2025! Construction is beginning the week after the Daffodil Parade and is expected to wrap up by the end of 2025. Improvements you’ll see after construction include inviting signage for Heritage Park and Hops Alley, improved seating and gathering space for daily use by the community as well as our popular events, pedestrian and site scaled lighting, additional ADA parking, pedestrian access, garbage collection organized in a new enclosure, landscaping, and enhancements to support flexible event space.

Background:

The concepts originated in 2020-2021 withContinue reading

Background:

The concepts originated in 2020-2021 with the Main Street Visioning Plan, which you can still visit in the "Important Links'" section on the right hand side of this page. That plan also identified rebuilding the roads around Heritage Park as plaza-level woonerfs, which was completed in 2023 as part of the Town Center Utility Woonerf project. The plan prioritized purchasing the last privately held portion of the block at 902 Kincaid, which the City completed in 2022.

In 2022-2023, JETT Landscape Architecture + Design worked with the community and staff to re-imagine Reuben Knoblauch Heritage Park as a more active, useful heart of the city, for special events and everyday use. This work also identified improvements for the adjacent alley, naming it Hops Alley, to serve as a flexible event space and for a more accessible and inviting parking area for its day use.

In 2024, JETT continued that design for both the alley and park to prepare for future construction. That design phase was funded with a grant from Pierce County Lodging Tax.

The City of Sumner was recommended to receive funding from Pierce County Lodging Tax to construct the north point of Heritage Park and Hops Alley. Additional funding includes Sound Transit Sumner LTAC, and other local funds.

The City of Sumner applied for and was given a Conditional Use Permit (CUP-2024-0005) for the phased redevelopment of the Reuben A. Knoblauch Heritage Park block. The associated files are also available in the documents section under CUP-2024-0005 folder.

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Survey

CLOSED: This survey has concluded.

Project Kickoff Survey

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey. Heritage Park is the heart of our community, and we would like your help to design a space that meets the needs and values of the community. Keep in mind this survey asks you questions about how to reimagine what has been known as Heritage Park along with the addition of our recent purchase of 902 Kincaid, the former “post office” building on the same block. The survey also asks questions about the alley that connects Kincaid to Alder Avenues just south of Main St.
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CLOSED: This survey has concluded.

Park Concept Alternatives

The first phase of the Heritage Park Master Plan & Alley Activation project engaged the community to collect ideas and preferences regarding what is currently loved and well used in the vicinity of the project as well as what problems and concerns may exist regarding the project. The preferences for events and programming, amenities, character and aesthetic, wayfinding and storytelling have led to two alternatives for Heritage Park. Please take a few minutes to get familiar with each alternative in the "Documents" section of the main page before taking this survey.