By Kevin Hanson-The Courier-Herald

A pair of popular recreation sites will have to move as the city of Enumclaw sells one piece of property and develops another.

The first to be moved will be the BMX course at the corner of Garrett Street and Battersby Avenue. The other, which could be a couple of years down the road, is the baseball diamond next to the Expo Center fieldhouse.

Finding a new site for the BMX course will be necessary because the city is selling the land on which the dirt track sits.

The city is advertising the parcel without an asking price. Rather, there are other factors to be considered. As part of the process, the city wants to know what prospective buyers will do with the land, what type of business would be located there, the time frame in which the property would be developed and how many jobs might eventually be created.

The City Council can be selective when deciding who to sell to, according to City Administrator Mark Bauer. The land doesn't have to go to the highest bidder.

As part of any sales agreement, the buyer of the city's 37,200 square feet of land will agree to relocate the BMX course.

Bauer said a likely destination is on city-owned land just north of the present BMX course, across Battersby.

Proposals from potential buyers were to be submitted by Monday.

The timeline isn't quite so pressing for the small ballpark, with its stone stairway, that sits next to the fieldhouse.

The baseball diamond is on land earmarked for Welcome Center and an adjacent parking lot. Long in the planning stages, the center - which will house offices of the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service, along with the Enumclaw Chamber of Commerce - will be built on a mostly-treed parcel between the fieldhouse and golf course.

With money in hand, the city has taken the initial steps toward getting the long-awaited Welcome Center built. Current plans call for the facility to be built and occupied by spring 2009.

Kevin Hanson can be reached at khanson@courierherald.com.