Shoreline’s New Inclusive Playground: Big Fun for Every Kid

Of the six paths down an embankment — a roller slide! a double slide! alternating hoops! — the most popular was none of the above. Instead, kids slid down on their bellies and abandoned their shoes to let the turf tickle their feet. 

This is the new $5.5 million Richmond Highlands Park, the first universal design playground and sensory garden in Shoreline. The 4.2-acre park, which opened Sept. 6, was designed by Mithun and paid for by a voter-approved 2022 parks bond. 

“Mithun is not responsible for lost shoes,” jokes landscape architect Christian Runge. 

As the dad of two kids in their prime playground era (almost 4 and 6), he has lots of hands-on experience with how kids play. For some reason, kids always want to go up the slide, so instead of saying “no,” he designed the topography to open up their possibilities. 

An updated park for the community 

What used to be a flat, wood-chipped play area is now a lively landscape with ups and downs on synthetic turf and wheel-friendly rubber surfacing. The gentle slopes, shaped by earth reused from the excavation, beckon tots on balance bikes seeking a bit of a thrill. Every part of this play area is wheelchair accessible. 

Inclusive play across all ages and abilities is the special focus of Richmond Highlands Park. While other parks have inclusive elements, here, everything is considered through that lens. There’s a fully accessible play area with embankment slides, swings, climbers and a spinner. The rest of the park includes a sensory garden, walking route, sports court, picnic shelter and ball field. (The only bummer here is that the park restroom did not get updated. It’s functional, but not pretty.) 

The goal of this park was to make it something that more of the community can use, says Mithun project manager Kasia Keeley. The adjacent community center houses a teen program and adult specialized recreation program, and the park sits a block from Shorewood High School. 

“When you create something that more people can use, it elevates the fun for everybody,” Keeley says. “It’s really a win-win.” 

When we visited, the play area was packed with delighted small children. We also saw teens on scooters and seniors chatting by the sensory garden. Richmond Highlands Park is just off Aurora Avenue North, but it feels like a quiet neighborhood secret. Hot tip: It’s also seven minutes from the Shoreline Costco, so build in a stop on your next Costco run. 

Explore the sensory garden and relax in the shade 

What sets Richmond Highlands apart from other parks is its large sensory garden. This was intentional: Parks tailored to accessibility can become so popular that they’re overstimulating, Keeley says. Richmond Highlands Park is one of six playgrounds that Shoreline is updating with the parks bond, and it’s the only one with this much space set aside for quiet exploration. 

The mature trees were saved in the park renovation, and they provide welcome shade. Where before there was struggling grass, there’s now a sensory garden with rosemary and sage, and other plants to touch and smell. Parents can relax on the benches in the garden while keeping a sightline to the kids. 

Another zone is dedicated to outdoor musical instruments, a xylophone and percussion instruments that sound just like wind chimes. Even the plants here are sound-based: A plant with a seed head that rattles, and a Swedish columnar aspen whose leaves whisper in the wind. 

Kids of all abilities can play on the inclusive playground 

The play area equipment includes a net climber offering different levels of challenges and a We-Go-Round, both from Landscape Structures. There’s an entire suite of swings: a pair of belt swings, two adaptive swings, and a big saucer swing that we saw four kids gleefully pile on. 

One feature that you don’t often see is the communication board, which has pictures to point at. 

The ball court next to the play area is painted bright blue, which will cheer you up even when the skies are anything but. You can practice riding a bike here or work on your dunk (the hoops are adjustable to appeal to different heights). 

Ping-pong tables and a picnic shelter are stationed alongside the court, holding the promise of spectacular park birthday parties. 

An accessible path loops around the ball field. The field was roped off when we visited to give the baby grass time to grow. 

In Shoreline and beyond, most parks departments recognize the need to build inclusive playgrounds like Richmond Highlands Park, Runge says. But these can be up to double the price, because of the cost of specialized play equipment, turf and rubber. 

By creating embankments, the synthetic turf becomes a play feature, not just a fall surface. It’s a slide, it’s a picnic area, it’s an outdoor living room. Wood chips are exponentially cheaper, but no one has picnics sitting on wood chips, ever, Runge points out. 

“Inclusive, all-abilities playgrounds cost more money to do the right thing,” Runge says. “Everyone recognizes the investment is super important.”