A new barn built at Tollgate Farm Park in North Bend was completed recently and park officials said it will soon become space for community agriculture classes, a farming incubator, a new farm stand and other projects.

Tollgate Farm Park, located between State Route 202 and West North Bend Way, is a 410-acre historic farm property owned by the city of North Bend and maintained by the Si View Metropolitan Parks District.

Late last month, members of Si View and the city gathered to celebrate the finished barn, which they said will carry on the park’s tradition of being a space for community and local foods. Historically, Tollgate Park served as a hunting ground for Indigenous people and later became a dairy farm and an orchard.

“We’re replicating what’s always been there,” said Travis Stombaugh, executive director of the Si View Parks District. “It’s a community gathering place for food and recreation. That’s the way it was a long time ago and that’s what it is today.”

Stombaugh said there are several plans for what the space can become over the next few years, describing the barn as a blank canvas that will increase access to local foods. Residents will soon be able to go for a walk on the park’s mile-long trail loop and “pick up some strawberries that were grown right there,” he said.

Stombaugh said he hopes the new barn will become an agriculture incubator where new farmers can use the property to get their businesses started and grow produce or raise livestock that they can sell on site.

Inside the barn and nearby 1904 farmhouse — which also underwent a remodel — Tollgate’s on-site farmers plan to hold cooking classes, summer camps and workshops teaching residents everything from processing and preparing meats to growing produce and gardening, Stombaugh said. There are also plans for an on-site farmstand on the left side of the building.

The project has been over a decade in the making. Stombaugh said the idea for a restored, on-site farm element at Tollgate came to him while attending a conference and seeing a similar project being undertaken at a Minnesota park.

At the time, he said, Tollgate had an underused space near the farmhouse that the public couldn’t access. The former barn had even fallen down, he said.

There are a few finishing touches left on the project, including installing a new kitchen in a farmhouse adjacent to the barn. Stombaugh also said he will put out a call for more farmers in the fall.

“Sit back and watch and you’re going to see some really neat things grow organically out there,” he said, “both figuratively and literally.”