The Soos Creek Botanical Garden on Auburn's Lea Hill is throwing open its gates this Saturday, Oct. 3, from 10 am to 4 pm, with a conservation celebration set for 2:30 pm to mark a deal that keeps the 23-acre property protected from development for good. The City of Auburn says it has completed the purchase, and the garden and its Heritage Center will remain open and accessible to the public.
According to the Auburn Reporter, the city says it has completed a conservation-focused purchase of the Soos Creek Botanical Garden and Heritage Center property, located at 29308 132nd Ave. SE. The goal, per that report, is to permanently protect the land from future development while keeping the garden open and accessible to the public. The purchase amount came to $2,630,000, with $1,830,000 payable at closing and the remaining $800,000 donated by the garden's founders as an equity gift, the outlet reports.
Who Keeps the Garden Running
Day-to-day operations aren't changing hands. The Soos Creek Botanical Garden Foundation will continue operating and maintaining the garden, the same report notes, meaning the volunteers and staff who have long tended the grounds and the Heritage Center's exhibits will stay in place even as ownership of the land shifts to the city.
The garden itself sits on 23 acres and is typically open for the season from early March to late October, according to the garden's own site. Its Heritage Center houses an extensive collection of early photos, historical maps and artifacts tied to the ancestors of the Soos Creek Plateau region — a nod to the property's roots as part of 200 acres purchased by Maurice Skagen's Norwegian immigrant ancestors between 1891 and 1905, per the same source.
How the Deal Came Together
The path to this week's celebration wasn't a straight line on paper. Reporting from late 2025 described the acquisition differently: the Kent Reporter wrote at the time that the city planned to purchase the 23-acre garden from its owner, Maurice Skagen, with the foundation set to operate and maintain the gardens and buildings in perpetuity while the city owned the underlying land. That same coverage said Auburn intended to tap a $2.1 million King County Conservation Futures Tax grant to fund the deal.
Conservation Futures money isn't new to Auburn. The city previously used the fund to buy property south of Isaac Evans Park in 2020 for preservation, and it purchased the Mill Creek properties in 2024, the Kent Reporter's earlier reporting notes — making Soos Creek the latest addition to a growing list of protected parcels around the city.
What Saturday Looks Like
For now, the focus is on Saturday's open house, which runs from 10 am to 4 pm with the conservation celebration itself at 2:30 pm. The community is invited to mark the purchase in person at the garden, giving neighbors on Lea Hill a chance to walk the grounds that will now stay green, and open, well into the future.
