ATTACHMENT 1
City of Napa Harvest Park Project
(2447 Old Sonoma Road)
Community Engagement Plan
PREPARED BY:
Contigo Communications | 2176 Palou Avenue | San Francisco, CA 94124 | O: 415.796.2125 or C: 415.810.8717 July 2026
Aerial view of Harvest Park Project site at 2447 Old Sonoma Rd. Napa
City of Napa Harvest Park Project
Community Engagement Plan 1
July 2026
Project Background
Site History:
On December 13, 2025, the City of Napa (“City”) officially closed on the purchase of the former Harvest Middle School property (“Property”), located at 2447 Old Sonoma Road, marking a major milestone in expanding local recreational opportunities.
This 26.62-acre developed property lies within City limits and was previously owned by Napa Valley Unified School District (NVUSD). The Property was formerly home to several educational institutions:
Ridgeview Junior High (1954-1982); Ridgeview Community Education Center (1982-2002); and Harvest Middle School (2003-2022).
The Property is centrally located off the City’s main thoroughfare, State Route 29, and lies in a densely populated and demographically diverse area of Napa. This accessible siting provides the City with a unique and generational opportunity to meet multiple recreational facility needs citywide, as well as provide public amenities within walking distance of many neighboring residents.
The Property’s aging school facilities are scheduled for demolition (excluding the two recreation gymnasiums), and the exterior recreational areas are scheduled to remain accessible for City programs and general public use while an approved aquatics and recreation facility concept is developed.
City of Napa Community Investment: Harvest Park Project Backed in part by Measure G funds, the City’s significant purchase of the Property has ensured that the site remains active and accessible for the community. It has also allowed the City to begin developing a long-term public recreation vision for the Property supported by community input. This new endeavor, the Harvest Park Project (“Project”), will span multiple design and construction phases under the lead of a licensed architecture firm, and will result in a new public recreation and aquatics center that addresses multiple facility gaps for Napa’s diverse and growing community.
To kick-off the Project, the City issued a Request for Proposals (“RFP”) from project teams with experience in consensus-driven and comprehensive planning and design services. After reviewing the RFP submissions, the City awarded the project to Noll & Tam Architects, with community engagement services by Contigo Communications and market research by Ballard*King.
The Community Engagement Plan described in this document is designed to support the City’s desire for an inclusive community engagement process. It reaches key recreation user groups as well as a broad spectrum of the community in order to represent the diverse residents of Napa.
City of Napa Harvest Park Project
Community Engagement Plan 2
July 2026
Baseline Property Recommendations
Development of the Harvest Park Project is guided by the City of Napa’s Park Policies, centered on the values of social equity, open access, and the importance of learn-to programs.
In preparation for Project planning, the City completed the first phase of public outreach in 2025 in collaboration with Probolsky Research, which was a multi-faceted effort to assess citywide interests related to parks, recreation facilities, programming, special events and marketing ("2025 Citywide Parks & Recreation Engagement Initiative"). This effort garnered valuable input related to community desires for parks and recreation and provides a strong baseline direction for the Project's design.
A summary of the results of the 2025 Citywide Parks & Recreation Engagement Initiative are provided in the following table. The table presents recreation facility types identified by the community as priorities (with the most popular results at the top), along with notes about the existing facilities of that type at the Property:
2025 Citywide Parks & Recreation Engagement Initiative Findings Community–Identified Facility Priority Existing Facility at Project Location Aquatic Facilities (including a community
pool and spray ground)
Existing pool on-site. Facility is not operational
and not adequately sized for citywide use.
Multi-generational / Multi-use Recreation
Facilities (indoor or outdoor)
No significant facilities available. One (1) multi-
use room located within the small gymnasium
building.
Synthetic Turf Fields
One (1) existing synthetic turf field on-site.
Facility needs repair and is due for capital
replacement to maintain programming demand.
Sports Courts (e.g. Pickleball, Tennis,
Basketball)
Existing asphalt basketball courts. Facilities are in
disrepair.
Recreation Gymnasium
Two (2) existing gymnasiums: one small
gymnasium (built 2012) and one large
gymnasium (built 1954).
Other public outreach prior to the 2025 Citywide Parks & Recreation Engagement Initiative supports these findings. In February and March of 2022, in preparation for the future sale of the property, NVUSD
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Community Engagement Plan 3
July 2026
hosted three public meetings in to collect input for future uses of the Property. In these meetings, strong support was communicated for improvement of the school’s athletic fields, gymnasiums, and swimming pool, along with continued use of Playground Fantástico.
This Community Engagement Plan will utilize the previous findings described above as a proven baseline with which to develop a comprehensive list of desired facilities for the Project.
Engagement Approach
The Harvest Park Project is currently in the program development stage, meaning the project team is assessing the recreational needs of the community and developing ideas on how best to meet them. A robust community engagement program offers the chance to improve design by informing, consulting, involving, and collaborating with members of the public.
The data-driven market analysis developed by Ballard*King, along with survey findings from the 2025 Citywide Parks & Recreation Engagement Initiative, has provided foundational insights into needs of Napa residents around parks and recreation. The community engagement plan outlined here will verify these priorities, develop further insights, and make sure the voices of all sectors of the community are heard.
Results will be achieved by engaging Napa residents through a variety of channels and by identifying priority populations whose voices may benefit from focused attention (see page 5 for a list of priority populations). As an example, this approach is expected to generate new insights in relation to the immediate area surrounding the Property – a dense residential area to the north of the site which contains some of Napa’s highest concentrations of lower-income and Spanish-speaking residents.
Timeframe
The Community Engagement Plan is split into three phases (see Exhibit A on page 8):
1. Start Up (June-July 2026) – build the organizational frameworks for the outreach campaign
2. Input Gathering (summer/fall 2026) – front-load outreach activity to build an engagement audience and gather data that can be leveraged to develop a concrete design
3. Design Alternatives (winter/spring 2027) – publicize prospective designs, solicit public feedback, and iterate design.
City of Napa Harvest Park Project
Community Engagement Plan 4
July 2026
Goals
The key goals of this outreach program are to:
1) Capture community feedback on recreational facilities and programming options, both indoor and outdoor, during the initial Input Gathering phase (summer/fall 2026); and capture feedback on project concept design options during the subsequent Design Alternatives phase (winter/spring 2027)
2) Empower community members by providing opportunities for Napa’s diverse population to share their voices and perspectives about community needs
3) Create working partnerships with community groups, community-serving organizations, and other key partners that engender trust and collaboration 4) Maintain transparency and a productive two-way communications program that puts public participation and community engagement at the forefront of the planning process
Tactics
To achieve the goals above, the following tactical plan is underway: (status in parentheses) 1) Community Scan – Identify key community partners and assemble a list of businesses, community-based organizations (CBOs), and other important institutions to be leveraged in community outreach (completed June 2026)
2) Project Partners – Engage trusted project partners (such as CBOs or community leaders) that can serve to engage local constituents, help disseminate program information, and collaborate on new program development (launched in July 2026)
3) Website – Establish a website to act as a central information portal:
https://www.cityofnapa.org/harvestparkproject (completed previously and regularly updated) 4) Online Interest Form – Gather participant information for Community Partner Meetings and Public Meetings. (launched in July 2026)
5) Community Notification – Distribute citywide postcard (38,000 households), flyers, canvassing, and email (through City of Napa channels and via Community Partners), informing the public of engagement opportunities (launched in July 2026)
6) City Staff Interviews – Meet with key personnel from City of Napa to gain in-depth information from local experts (July – September 2026)
7) Event Pop-ups – Participate in public events or venues to communicate directly with Napa residents, gather data, and generate more engagement. Possible pop-ups include:
City of Napa Harvest Park Project
Community Engagement Plan 5
July 2026
a. National Night Out – August 4, 2026
b. City of Napa Community Playdate – August 21, 2026
c. Religious Institutions (e.g., St. Thomas or St. John the Baptist churches) – Sundays d. Lola’s Market – weekdays
e. Napa Farmers Market – Saturdays
f. Tabling at Harvest Park or Fantástico Park – weekdays or weekends g. Others TBD, February – April 2027
8) Community Partner Meetings – Facilitate small-group discussions with specific demographic and interest groups meant to generate more nuanced understandings of community preferences.
Groups will be organized around the following priority populations: (July – September 2026) a. Immediate Neighborhood
b. Seniors (English- and Spanish-language)
c. Parents & Families with young children (12 & under)
d. Teens
e. Youth & Adults with Disabilities
f. City Scholarship Families (aquatics classes)
g. Sustainability & Environmental Interest
h. Lower-income populations
i. Hispanic/Spanish-language
j. Recreation-focused groups (i.e, aquatics, sports fields, sports courts, rec gym users)
9) Public Meetings – Organize large-group citywide meetings meant to inform wide swaths of the Napa public and solicit general feedback.
a. August 18, 2026, in-person City Council meeting at Napa City Hall – City-wide general population
b. August 26, 2026, virtual Town Hall meeting – City-wide general population c. September 2, 2026, in-person Town Hall Bilingual meeting at the Harvest Property
d. September 3, 2026, in-person Town Hall Spanish-language meeting, at the Harvest Property
e. TBD February - March, 2027, two (2) in-person Town Hall meetings and one (1) virtual Town Hall meeting to vet design alternatives and support development of a modified, preferred concept
10) Community Engagement Reports – Presentation and analysis of data generated by outreach campaign
a. Community Engagement Summary Report, (November 2026) – summary of the data collected in the information-gathering stage (July – September 2026) that will be used to create initial project designs
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Community Engagement Plan 6
July 2026
b. Second Community Engagement Summary Report, (April 2027) – a comprehensive report on the data collected during the entire community engagement campaign and how that data has been used to inform design 11) Ongoing Multi-faceted Community Awareness Campaign – led by the City Manager’s Office a. Social Media Updates
b. Press Releases to Local Newspapers
c. Local Radio spotlights
d. Text Updates (For opt-in users)
e. Public Information Desks and TVs (e.g. Senior Center, Finance, Housing) f. Local Community Boards
12) Post-Outreach Follow-up – After the conclusion of the Design Alternatives phase in spring 2027, project updates will be provided to the public as the project progresses. a. The project website (https://www.cityofnapa.org/harvestparkproject) will continue to be a key source for information and engagement
Timeline
See Exhibit A on page 8 for a timeline of outreach efforts.
City of Napa Harvest Park Project
Community Engagement Plan 7
July 2026
Stay Involved!
The Public is encouraged to visit the project website (https://www.cityofnapa.org/harvestparkproject) to stay informed.
Community members can join our newsletter to receive the latest updates on this project by following the following steps:
1. Visit http://www.cityofnapa.org/NotifyMe.
2. Scroll through our list of subscriptions to “New Future Public Recreation Campus (Former Harvest Middle School Site) Newsletter”
3. Choose delivery method: email or SMS
a. Click on the envelope icon to receive email
b. Click on the phone icon to receive SMS
4. You will need to log in or create an account on our Civic Plus subscription management system
Sign-up for updates to receive more information on dates, times, and locations for upcoming community engagement opportunities.
https://cityofnapa.org/harvestparkproject
City of Napa Harvest Park Project
Community Engagement Plan 8
July 2026
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