PORT TOWNSEND — The marina at Point Hudson is scheduled to open March 1 after having been closed since September when reconstruction of the south jetty started.
“We are in the home stretch,” Capital Projects Director Matt Klontz told commissioners at their meeting Wednesday. “The in-water work ends [Thursday] and the walkway will be the main focus for the next two weeks.”
At 18 feet about the water, the new pedestrian walkway along the top of the jetty offers a great view of Admiralty Inlet and Port Townsend Bay, Klontz said.
“It’s going to be very popular,” he said.
When work on the south jetty is over, the port’s $14 million project to replace Point Hudson’s 90-year-old jetties will come to an end. Removal and reconstruction of the north jetty began in September 2022 and finished in January 2023.
A grand opening celebrating the completion of the project is planned April 24.
The port is in the process of writing a grant application for Phase 2 of the Distressed Area Recompete Pilot Program for funding that would allow it to expand the Boatyard at Boat Haven — essentially doubling the size and capacity of the existing yard, Executive Director Eron Berg said.
“Expansion would give us the flexibility to attract new businesses and serve our existing businesses and support the marine trades,” he said.
The project would address city stormwater that runs off Sims Way-state Highway 20 and into the boatyard, hampering the port’s desire to expand and develop its property, particularly to the west. A new spur to the Larry Scott Memorial Trail also would be created as part of the design.
Berg said port staff had been able to use data from a feasibility study of the property funded by the Community Economic Revitalization Board in the application, which required extensive engineering and environmental documentation.
The boatyard is one of the projects in the North Olympic Peninsula Recompete Plan that in December was named a finalist in the federal Recompete program and could bring $50 million the Olympic Peninsula.
The Recompete program would provide 100 percent of the funding for the port’s boatyard expansion project that Berg estimated would cost about $9.5 million. However, a final number won’t be known until staff submitted the application, which is due April 25.
Commissioners unanimously approved changing the payment source of some of the port’s 2020-2023 projects from Industrial Development District monies to a different fund in order to purchase of a 300-ton variable width boat lift.
However, the lift was not eligible for IDD funding and the “reach-back,” Director of Finance and Administration Abigail Berg explained, would allow the port to access funds for its purchase, as well as for other projects.
The port was awarded a grant last year from the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Economic Adjustment Assistance Disaster Reliever and Recovery Program that would pay for 80 percent of the $2,345,833 lift with a 20 percent port match of $586,459.
In other port news:
• Abigail Berg was recognized for her eight years at the port in a retirement ceremony during the meeting.
“You were a tremendous model of professionalism, super careful in your work and made a lasting impression on this organization,” Deputy Director Eric Toews said. “You will be missed.”
The port went through four executive directors from when Berg was hired in June 2015, to the hiring of current Executive Director Eron Berg in March 2020. (The two are not related.)
“The difference from then and where we are now is huge,” Abigail Berg said. “I’m proud to have been a part of that.”
Connie Anderson, the former director of finance and technology services at the City of Port Townsend, replaced Abigail Berg.
• The Short’s Family Farm steering committee will meet from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 21 at the WSU Jefferson County Extension Kively Center, 212 Oak Bay Road., Port Hadlock.
The group will discuss their visit to the farm Feb. 7 and establish a plan for creating a road map for the port to use for developing the 253-acre farm it purchased last year. The public is welcome to attend the meeting.
• When the port vacates its moorage office at Point Hudson sometime this spring or early summer, the small white building over the water will be available to rent.
“It would make a nice space for a deli or a bodega, something that adds to the vitality of Point Hudson,” Eron Berg said.
Those interested in the space should contact lease and contracts administrator Sue Nelson, 360-385-0656.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached at Paula.Hunt@peninsuladailynews.com
