Saratoga develops vision for new local attraction: Quarry Park

Imagine a museum built from former quarry buildings, versatile trails that support bicycles and horses as well as pedestrians, a zip line course, a fishing pond and a playground for young children surrounded by lush, colorful flora. All of these are possible attractions for a new park in Saratoga.

Half a mile west from downtown Saratoga lies 64 acres of land that was previously used as a greywake (a mineral used for road construction) mine from 1908 to its shutdown in 1967. 

The City of Saratoga purchased that land in October 2011 from the County of Santa Clara to develop into a new community space called Quarry Park. 

Now, two years later, the proposed Quarry Park, located near the Historic Saratoga Village and Hakone Gardens, has morphed into an ambitious project. With hiking routes, Quarry Park hopes to link Saratoga to the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail runs all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

According to Saratoga councilmember Howard Miller, the project is run by the Public Works Department, while any direct citizen involvement, such as giving ideas for park components, is run by the Parks and Recreation Department. 

Miller said the project has been in the works for almost 20 years, and that he and past mayors have been pushing for the creation of the park.

 Miller said that when he was mayor, Saratoga became the owner of the land. The next mayor led the effort with LAFCO (Local Area Formation Commission), the local administrative agency that oversees among other things, what land can be in a city.

Miller said the project continues to be a daunting challenge.

“This was a huge effort that is still going on,” Miller said. “We are going to annex this into the city limits. The future mayors will have a challenge of finding funding to actually develop and open the park for public use.”

Currently, Saratoga is in the midst of a community planning process to develop a vision for Quarry Park. On July 9 and Sept. 10, the Parks and Recreation Center hosted two workshops to gather public input for the project. 

During these meetings, participants split into three separate groups to discuss different attractions for the park. The products of these meetings are two rival future themes that are competing to be incorporated into the Master Plan for Quarry Park — Saratoga’s Hidden Playground and Digging Into the Past. At the moment, a basic Master Plan has been created, but it does not include either of these ideas. 

While these two plans both involve a variety of hiking trails and a day use area with features like a community garden, they present different potential focuses for Quarry Park. 

On one hand, Saratoga’s Hidden Playground imagines the space as a community gathering area by creating multiple picnic areas and highlighting Saratoga’s tree diversity with informational guides. 

In contrast, Digging Into the Past dramatizes Saratoga mining history with an interpretive walking loop that would allow visitors some access to concrete tunnels of the mine and an indoor and outdoor museum. 

On the surface, Quarry Park looks like a promising opportunity for Saratoga. However, the project faces a variety of conceptual constraints, such as funding challenges and most troubling, topography. 

One of Quarry Park’s major planned attractions is a link to the Pacific Ocean through the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail and Sanborn Park. This, however, requires the use of land currently owned by the San Jose Water Company. In addition, in order to bridge Quarry Park and the Saratoga Village, the trail must cross over private property and Hakone Gardens.

Another major hurdle for Quarry Park’s creation will be funding for its construction. The City Council so far has invested $1.4 million into the creation of a master plan. Despite this, the outlook for Quarry Park is positive.

“The development [of the draft of the] Master Plan is a  huge step forward, so I see big progress,” senior engineer Iveta Harvancik said.

In the upcoming months, the city will work on creating a new concept plan for the construction of the park, meet with the Parks and Recreation Committee and host a third public workshop in November.

If all goes according to plan, the master plan, which started in May 2013, will complete development in March 2014, when the City hopes to have final plans approved by the City Council.

“I hope Quarry Park will provide additional outdoor experience for residents [through] hiking trails and [a] learning opportunity [regarding] mining history,” Harvancik said.