PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles property where Extreme Sports Park has held sprint boat races annually since 2011 is now for sale and all sprint boat events for this summer are canceled.
Windermere has A2Z Enterprises’ 85-acre property at 2917 W. Edgewood Drive listed at $975,000, calling it a rare opportunity to own heavy-industrial zoned land within city limits.
“It’s going to be very devastating to our community to not have any more events out there,” said Kelie Morrison, whose husband, Dan Morrison, is one of four partners who own A2Z.
“There were a lot of people involved out there that made this event happen, and they hate to see it go away.”
The Morrisons and Jerry Payne, who is also a partner in A2Z, own Extreme Sports Park, which leased the property from A2Z last year.
In May, A2Z’s four partners — Dan, Jerry Payne, Don Zozosky and Scott Ackerman — all agreed to sell the property for no less than $860,000, an amount that would be split between the four partners, the Morrisons and the other partners’ attorney said.
The Morrisons said they had secured financing and offered up to $600,000 to buy the property from the other A2Z partners. The money would be split three ways between Zozosky, Payne and Ackerman.
Shane Seaman, a Poulsbo attorney who represents the three other partners, said the Morrisons never made a formal offer and that an offer wasn’t rejected.
Payne and Zozosky declined to comment, saying they would rather speak through their attorney.
“There was talk of an offer, but they never came forward with a firm offer from a bank,” Seaman said.
Kelie said she and Dan did in fact have financing from a bank and that if the offer was accepted, they wanted to save the races.
The Morrisons wanted to be sure the offer would be accepted before putting together a formal offer and putting money down, Kelie said.
Seaman said the four partners had discussed selling the property over the past year and that a prospective buyer backed out after the races last year.
“If someone can offer the price they agreed to and keep Dan racing, [the partners] would be thrilled,” Seaman said. “They are trying to resolve a business issue and move on.”
Seaman said there have been ongoing business disputes — including two lawsuits that have since been resolved — and likened the decision to sell as a divorce, calling it a “tough business decision.”
“Sometimes you just have to get divorced and go separate ways,” he said. “Three of them can’t seem to work it out with one of them.”
He said the three partners were surprised ESP had advertised the races for this year when the one-year lease ESP had for the property was set to expire June 30 of this year.
Kelie said they had advertised and planned this year’s races with the hope that she and Dan could buy the other partners out of the property.
Dan said he is upset about canceling the races because they had been such an economic boon to the area and he enjoyed seeing the excitement the community had for the races.
“We don’t have weekends like that around this town, to see this town rally and have 500 RVs out there every time we go race,” he said. “We’ve been getting people from all over the United States and out of the country to come see us in this town.”
The races have boasted attendance of upward of 9,000 to 10,000 people and average between 5,000 and 6,000.
Dan said he fought with the Dry Creek Coalition, environmentalists and state and federal regulators to bring the races to Port Angeles and recently worked with the city to extend ESP’s conditional use permit indefinitely.
Now he fears the property will sit unused for years as A2Z awaits an offer.
“It ain’t going to happen,” he said. “Nobody is coming to this town to buy heavy-industrial property.”
The Morrisons said they couldn’t be more thankful for those who supported ESP and are encouraging them to continue supporting their team, Wicked Racing.
They said businesses and volunteers supported the park with their time and with donations.
“The people that supported us rallied hard,” Dan said. “There’s just a list of people, I can just keep going down that list, it’s huge.”
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.
