PORT TOWNSEND — Heading into the final leg of a long voyage, the Northwest Maritime Center has until March 31 to raise $545,000 and meet the requirements for its final challenge grants — $600,000 from the Kresge Foundation and $500,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation.
The Maritime Center most recently received a gift of $250,000 from the national Martin Foundation.
That brought the nonprofit organization within $545,000 of the amount required to be raised by March 1 for the awarding of $1.1 million in challenge grants.
The national Kresge Foundation and Gates grants will cap the campaign and bring to a close the Maritime Center’s 10-year fund raising effort that has led to the center’s opening at 431 Water St., in Port Townsend, next to Point Hudson Marina.
The Maritime Center is expected to throw open its doors for a public open house May 1 to celebrate the project’s completion.
More than $11.1 million has been raised to date for the $12.8-million building campaign, and construction of the center is essentially complete, save for final touches, such as the McCurdy Maritime Library on the second floor of the center’s Maritime Heritage & Resource Building.
“The Martin Foundation gift gives us great momentum in our efforts to complete the challenge by the March 31 deadline,” said Stan Cummings, executive director of the Northwest Maritime Center & Wooden Boat Foundation, who was in Seattle this week to court donors to the project from the other half of Puget Sound’s maritime community.
“But it is important to realize that if we don’t make the March 31 goal, the $1.1 million in challenge money disappears, and that means we have to keep fundraising to replace it.”
10 weeks
The Northwest Maritime Center has 10 weeks to raise more than $500,000, and if it succeeds, the most ambitious capital campaign undertaken in Jefferson County will be history, Cummings said.
“We hope a portion comes from the local community,” Cummings said of the final fund-raising drive.
The final campaign will carry the appropriate title, “Help Us Raise the Sails and Get the Ship Moving,” said Shelly Randall, who putting out word for the effort.
With local, state and federal funding sources and private foundation grants tapped out, Cummings said nearly all of that amount will need to come from business and private individuals’ donations, campaign leaders say.
The March 31 challenge deadline was set by the Kresge Foundation in early 2009, after construction of the center’s two buildings began and before the extent of the banking crisis was known.
Campaign fund-raisers pushed on, raising $2.9 million last year despite the shaky economy and celebrating the opening of the Chandler Education Building at September’s Wooden Boat Festival.
“It’s essential that we close out the campaign, and the challenge grants are an opportunity to do that,” said Steve Oliver, Northwest Maritime Center and Wooden Boat Foundation board president. “If we miss this opportunity to close it out, we slide back considerably.”
Cummings said taht, besides the $12.8 million total construction cost, the center’s previous campaign raised $3.15 million for the Thomas Oil waterfront site purchase, site cleanup and Maritime Center dock construction.
The final money raised will be spent to match a Port Security Grant for furniture, fixtures and equipment to outfit the pilothouse, meeting rooms, catering kitchen, classrooms, and information technology.
First Federal bank has provided a bridge loan — line of credit — of $5 million to cover the shortfall of beginning construction before fund-raising was complete, and also because some gifts are spread out over a number of years.
The amount spent on the capital campaign fund-raising is $726,000, or about 5.6 percent of the goal.
Primo Construction of Carlsborg, west of Sequim, constructed the project, which ties in with the city of Port Townsend’s downtown streetscape project at the end of Water Street.
In September, the Maritime Center celebrated the grand opening of Chandler Maritime Education Building, First Federal Commons, public walkways and grounds, along with the Helen Keeley Boathouse opening to rowers.
In November, administrative offices moved from leased Point Hudson facilities at the Cupola House to Maritime Heritage & Resource Building.
The boat shop also began operation, teaching students the craft of small wooden boat building.
It is planned in May that the center’s chandlery opens in Maritime Heritage & Resource Building, lower level, along with Aldrich’s Galley coffee shop.
H.W. McCurdy Library also will open in the Maritime Heritage & Resource Building, upper level. It will also move from the Cupola House and be greatly expanded.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
