SEQUIM — As a service to merchants and summer visitors, the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce is opening a satellite visitor center through September in the heart of downtown Sequim.
The center will open June 5.
“We’ve never had two locations before, and we might tweak it as we go along,” chamber Executive Director Shelli Robb-Kahler said of the 1,400 feet of unleased, empty retail space donated to the chamber by owner Brown Maloney.
The space will be just west of That Takes the Cake, which is at 171 W. Washington St.
Robb-Kahler said the satellite visitor center will be manned by two to three volunteers, and the space will be shared with volunteer artists from Blue Whole Gallery for overflow art exhibit space.
Another nonprofit group, Sequim Arts, will use the temporary exhibit space in July, Robb-Kahler said.
Blue Whole, an artist cooperative gallery celebrating its 15th anniversary, is seven doors east at 129 W. Washington St.
Robb-Kahler said the chamber will experiment with business hours for the center.
But to start, it will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
The usual racks filled with visitor information, pamphlets and maps of Olympic National Park will be available to visitors.
“We will have everything we have on display at the visitor center on East Washington Street,” Robb-Kahler said.
The chamber director said downtown merchants are “very excited” about the new center.
“We’re gearing up with summer tourism season,” Robb-Kahler said adding that a program for Sequim merchants — “Personal Encounters of the Best Kind” — will be put on at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
The chamber’s existing visitor center, which is about a mile from downtown, and is mainly staffed by volunteers — who answer questions and point visitors to the right sources — normally sees between 4,000 and 5,000 visitors during summer months.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
