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Plans first made 20 years ago to build an official entrance to Portland’s Forest Park are closer to becoming a reality with the recent award of $1.5 million in state lottery bond funding for the project design.

The city of Portland will use the funds, along with $800,000 in system development charges revenue, to complete the site planning, engineering and design for the project, said Astrid Dragoy, Portland Parks & Recreation natural areas manager. Requests for proposals seeking a design team will likely be issued within the next six months after a new city staffer has been hired to oversee the project, she said.

Plans for the new Forest Park entrance, first proposed in a 1995 city plan for the 5,200-acre park, call for a nature center, trail and viewing platform that are accessible to people with disabilities and a parking lot that can accommodate school buses for students on field trips. The project would be constructed on a city-owned former industrial brownfield site adjacent to Forest Park near the intersection of Highway 30 and Northwest Kittridge Avenue.

The project will create a main entry point that’s currently missing from Forest Park 鈥� the largest forested urban park in the U.S. 鈥� and ease access to its nature trails, Dragoy said.

鈥淲hile we have a lot of entrances to Forest Park, they tend to be kind of small and a lot of entrances are in neighborhoods,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he park will now have an iconic entrance.鈥�

Park officials hope to wrap up design and break ground on the new visitor center, parking lot and trail within the next two years, but must first secure funding to move into construction, Dragoy said. Once the design phase is complete, the city will have an estimate for the project construction cost, she added.