Plans for a major rearrangement of Jubilee Park are taking shape, including the addition of a new baseball field, but the changes taking place this year will still be minor-league.
At a Cave Junction City Council meeting on Monday, Feb. 9, city Parks and Recreation Commission chairman John Miles delivered his annual report on the group’s activities.
Miles said that, in the 2017 Parks Master Plan, the three top priorities that the community put forward for Jubilee Park were a water park, ADA restrooms, and a park host. The water play area, or splash pad, opened in 2024. And the park now has a host. New restrooms are the next improvement planned, project to come late this year or early next year.
In a later interview, Miles explained the details.
The plan is to replace the existing bathrooms near the entrance to the park entirely, with no plans to refurbish or replace the now-closed restrooms in the rear of the park.
The new restrooms would be next to where the current restrooms are, and would be a prefab unit with four self-contained unisex bathrooms, each accessed through its own door from the outside.
“A big crane just comes in and puts the pieces of the building in place,” Miles said.
To pay for the new bathrooms, at a rough estimated cost of $300,000, the city must come up with about $60,000 in matching funds to be eligible for a grant. To help do that, Miles said, the city has added a $1-a-month park fee onto city utility bills. That will help raise about $1,000 a month, and the rest of the matching funds will come from in-kind work and other sources.
Miles says the city also hopes to receive an AARP grant to level out some sidewalks and extend others, making the park more accessible to those with walkers and wheelchairs. If it receives the grant, that work would be done this year.
Other work that was done in 2025 at Jubilee Park: Crews installed a basketball hoop behind the tennis courts, updated lines for tennis and pickleball in the tennis courts, seeded grass and planted trees near the spray pad, and replaced lighting.
At the Council meeting, councilors mentioned that the fire lane at Jubilee Park would soon be repainted with red paint. People parking in that area, along the fence in the parking lot, has been a problem, they said. They expressed hope that the repainting along with “community shame” would help fix the issue.
As far as Old Stage Park, the city’s only other park property, which remains undeveloped, the only activity to report was a fuels-reduction project.
More extensive plans for Jubilee Park in the coming years include a second baseball field, basketball courts, separate tennis and pickleball courts, and a reimagined amphitheatre for live music and performances.
In 2019, the city of Cave Junction, purchased a 5-acre property to the northeast of the park for $80,000.The property was purchased using money from a state grant, but a stipulation of that grant was that the park install an additional baseball field.
The addition of a second baseball field to the park had been proposed in the 2017 Master Plan. With a second field, Miles said, the park would be able to host tournaments for teams from out of town, increasing local economic activity.
“Originally the plan was to put the field into that new purchase, but there’s just too much elevation change. It would require large retaining walls, and grading,” Miles said.
So, instead, the city plans to build a baseball field in the only other area in the park with enough space: the wooded area currently occupied by the performance stage.
Under this plan, the stage would be moved to the new property, facing northeast. Audience seating would be along a slope, giving more of an amphitheatre feel. Additional parking would be added — at least 72 spaces — along with a drive-in entrance off of Old Stage Road.
No actual layout plans are set in stone yet. Several different options have been proposed, with different configurations of the new courts. The skate park would be unaffected in the proposed layouts.
To help come up with some layout options, the commission did community outreach and asked people where they’d like to see the new facilities.
“We put the park on a big magnetic whiteboard, with tennis courts, other park facilities, and people could just move them around, and this is what we came up with,” Miles said.
Another consideration in layout was the removal of trees, including some planted by the Illinois Valley Garden Club. Of particular interest is a dawn redwood tree near the skate park, planted by the club in 2011.
The idea of adding a dog park was also ruled out, Miles said, since the prospective site, a small plot southeast of the existing baseball field, would be difficult to access.
As far as paying for all these massive improvements, Miles said Oregon Parks and Recreation Department grants may be the major funder. An OPRD grant helped pay for the splash pad.
Those who wish to offer feedback or engage in the planning process can email cjparkcommission@cavejunctionoregon.us
Miles said that the commission is pretty set on the list of planned improvements, but many of the specifics, including the exact layout, are still being worked out.
“Once we get to the point we’re happy with it, we’ll have a workshop on it,” he said.