Stumble Upon Tyson Neighborhood Park- A Tot's Spot

3405 E St. Springfield, Oregon 97478 - Park Visit: Friday- April 18th, 2025 @ 11:30AM-12:30PM

We visited Tyson Park on a Friday morning between our grocery pick ups at Albertsons and Walmart (Am I the only person who didn't realize, until far too recently, that pick up is FREE????). It was a perfect pit stop right in the middle. We pulled up to and parked at the main entrance which is at E St. and 34th St. Strangely, there is no park sign or maybe I completely missed it. I felt the neighborhood was...ok. I should have driven around a bit to scope it out, I will try and make that a point in my future visits. Contrary to many Yelp reviews, there is plenty of parking on E St. directly in front of the park and accessing two path heads that connect the adjacent sides of the park, indicated as "Main Entrance Parking" and "Secondary Entrance Parking" on the site plan below. There are also two alternative areas to park and enter the park at 34th St. and 35 St. both listed as "Alternate Entrane & Parking" on the site plan.

If you're standing looking into the park from the main entrance the park is on your right and the basketball backstop is to your left. The main entrance path takes you to the full size basketball court with adjustable hoops, as well as a handicap accessible picnic area with a single handicap accessible table and two different style grills. The grills are available to the public but were locked. I am assuming you need to call and request to use them. There's a trash can in this area.

Playground From E St. Parking, Picnic Area and Basketball Courts

See "the big" slide on the right.

As you follow the path passed the courts and picinic spot you come to the cute little green, yellow and brown play ground. It's got wood chips and a small area of those rubber squares. It's bordered in an old and worn wooden perimeter which seperates the grass from the wood chips. The play structure is perfect for a tot. I'd say 1-5 year olds would like this play structure best. I felt

Here's the little slide and the wide railed stairs up to the first landing.

like my littles were really safe on the structure. It's not too high off the ground which is really nice for the tot age group (and their anxiety riden mothers - just me?!) and the banisters are well placed and small so littles can't fall through. There is an opening at the highest point (maybe about 5'), near "the big" slide (still tot sized!), for the straight pole. The shortest level which also has a cute little slide is probably about 3 feet. It only has 3 steps up. These steps are railed wide, unfortunately.

Top: 34th St. Access Bottom: 35th St Access

The main path walks past the park to access the homes on the backside of the park and spits you out in the cul-de-sac of 34th. In order to access the other side of the park via paved path, where the baseball backstop is, you have to go back to the main entrance. The path does not loop, bummer. Although, you could loop through the neighborhood by going out the 34th St. access, making a left (West) onto C St. and another left (North) at 35th St. Since I don't know this neighborhood very well and wasn't quite sure of it, we didn't do that. We went back to the main entrance and walked down the path towards the baseball backstop and then turned around at the 35th St. acess to head back to the car. On our quick (how quick could it be with a 3 year old and a toddling 1 year old?! Not that quick!) little jaunt towards the baseball backstop I did notice two cars parked near the secondary entrance with people kind of milling around and hanging inside the cars. Definite, shady vibes. But they were quiet and not bothering anyone that I saw. They were certainly not patronizing (is that the right word?!) the park.

Pathway between "Main Entrance Parking" and "Secondary Entrance Parking" with bench and doggy bags, View looking towards baseball backstop from play ground, another view of connecting pathway.

The baseball backstop is just that, a backstop. There is no diamond, no dirt. When you stand on the path looking at backstop it is kind of a quintessential, "Wonder Years" type, view with the neighborhood, mature trees, blue skies and the smoke stack from the factory in the distance!

Baseball Backstop

The park is cute, the play structure is old and a bit worn but it was perfect for my 1 and 3 year old and I think they'd enjoy going back. We met a nice family there and the kids played together. The over all vibe of the space was good. The mature trees provide nice shade near the play structure and are scatered through out the perimeter of the open grasy area. While the play structure is designed for younger kids, having access to the basketball courts, the open grassy area and the baseball backstop provides a place for older kids to play also.

I learned that Tyson Park is slotted for a pretty massive redesign. I've emailed Willamalane in hopes of getting a bit more information and I'll update this post if I do. "Tyson Park was identified as high priority for redevlopment" (The Bottom Line) through Willamalane's 2023 Comprehensive Plan. The Willamalane website shows contrcustion is projected to start and finish this year. However, I can't find any current information or draft/final plans anywhere. If you know anything about the redevelopment at Tyson Park tell us more in the comments section!

Guess How Much Willamalane is Investing in the NEW Tyson Park

• 500,000
• 3,000,000
• 1,000,000
• 2,000,000

Did you find my review helpful? Hit the ❤️ button, I'd really appreciate the love! Let me know in the comments if you've visited Tyson Park and what you thought. Did I miss something you'd like to hear about in this or future park reviews? Let me know how I can tailor these reviews to what you're looking for, [Crunchy-ish] Mamas!

Keep an eye out for review #2, Volunteer Park is next and I'll tell you whhhat, it's pretty great!

Let's do this thing together.

Tyson Park is located at 3405 E St. nestled between Main St. to the South and Olympic St. to the North, N 42nd St. to the East and 28th St. the West. It's very near the Walmart off Olympic St.

# 3 May 8th, 2025