PORT ANGELES — The city’s new waterfront park will have its coming-out party this weekend as the public gets its first up-close glimpse of two new artificial beaches that cost $1 million.
The free Jammin’ in the Park celebration at the nearly completed $2.5 million recreation area at the west end of Railroad Avenue will offer plenty of inaugural bling from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday.
The festival, sponsored by Nor’wester Rotary and Koenig Subaru, will offer participants live music performed by local bands, a beer and wine garden, a games-oriented kid zone with a face-painting booth, and volleyball- and lounge-friendly beaches with actual sand.
They can admire vehicles at a car show, be amazed by remote-controlled ground and airborne toy demonstrations, derive devilish pleasure at a celebrity dunk tank and chow down on hamburgers and hot dogs.
Beginning at 11 a.m., the bands scheduled for hourlong segments are PufnStuff, Trail Mix, Joy in Mudville, Bob Wire, Dan and the Juan de Fuca Band and Black Diamond Junction.
Both of the sandy beaches, completed in fall 2014 by Bruch & Bruch Construction Inc. of Port Angeles, are 80 feet wide. One is 200 feet long, the other 130 feet long.
A volleyball tournament had been planned but never reached fruition due to a lack of sign-ups, said event organizer Steve Zenovic, a Nor’wester Rotary past president who also is involved with the park development project.
His engineering firm, Zenovic & Associates Inc., is the lead engineering firm for this Phase 2 of the city’s $17 million waterfront development project, which includes transformation of a grassy field into what the city has informally dubbed West End Park.
“If it’s sunny at all on the other beach, you can throw a blanket down,” he said.
“I kind of visualize this as a nice city park that has some benches, some open spaces, some nice amenities like open beaches, things like that.”
Nathan West, city community and economic development director, said this week that all the park’s concrete work has been completed, including a path connecting with the Olympic Discovery Trail.
But there will be a noticeable lack of grass, trees and shrubs.
“We wouldn’t have felt comfortable planting anything with the drought continuing,” Zenovic said.
A $285,952 grant that would have helped fund the sod-planting has been held up by a dispute between the Clallam County commissioners and county Treasurer Selinda Barkhuis about Opportunity Fund grants.
“It would just be nice if the lawn were there to play on, but we can all get by,” Zenovic said.
Festival-goers will be able to sit on benches of granite blocks throughout the park and on a seawall with a view of Port Angeles Harbor.
“People will be seeing a work in progress,” West said.
Barkhuis has said the commissioners did not follow proper procedures in awarding the Opportunity Funds and a $1 million grant to the Port of Port Angeles.
Commissioners have pledged to seek a declaratory judgment in Superior Court to affirm their decision.
West said the city could receive the Opportunity Fund grant in three weeks to six weeks.
But county Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols predicted Thursday that it will be “a month to several months” before a judge hears the case.
“Certainly not three weeks,” Nichols said.
“I certainly hope so by the end of the year.”
Development of the park is part of a city Waterfront Transportation Improvement Plan that has seen an esplanade constructed on the Railroad Avenue waterfront next to and east of the park.
The waterfront improvements will stretch from Valley Creek Estuary west of the park to Hollywood Beach, about a quarter-mile east.
More than $8.5 million has been spent on the improvements.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
