PORT ANGELES — Phase 2 of the city’s ambitious waterfront improvement project, which includes a park and two pocket beaches, is all but finished except for the City Council approval expected at Tuesday’s regular meeting.
But the project’s proposed $7.2 million final phase, which still needs funding and council approval, would break new ground if approved: It would include the city’s first traffic circle.
Park-oriented Phase 2 is on tap for final City Council approval at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
A sodless new waterfront area known as West End Park, which features two artificial beaches and a walkway, opened in September as the $2.5 million signature piece of Phase 2.
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.
Phase 3, which is still in its conceptual stage and has not been approved by the City Council, would include 8.1 acres of waterfront park.
More than $8.5 million has been spent on the improvements so far.
The park’s sod has been added since the grand opening of the 1.5-acre park at the west end of Railroad Avenue.
But fences will remain until the sod is fully rooted, Assistant City Planner Ben Braudrick said Thursday.
And yet to arrive are electricity-generating wind spires.
The electricity will feed the Bonneville Power Administration grid to offset city utility electricity that will illuminate the park.
Railroad Avenue consisted of a raised railroad trestle over water before it was plugged with fill.
When the waterfront park’s beaches were being excavated, workers came across a trestle.
“It was absolutely immense,” Braudrick recalled.
“It looked exactly in place.”
The city has dedicated $100,000 to Phase 3, which will include paving washboard-like Railroad Avenue from the newly surfaced esplanade where Laurel Street intersects Railroad to Lincoln Avenue near the north end of The Gateway transit center.
According to a Phase 3 project narrative provided by the city Department of Community Development, it includes providing access to Peabody Creek estuary that would be developed in 2017.
Also provided would be event and street-performance space, seating, overlooks, access to the water from a floating dock for nonmotorized boats, a bridge connecting City Pier and The Landing mall and the enlargement and restoration of Hollywood Beach.
The proposed traffic circle — a smaller version of a roundabout — would be built at the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Lincoln Street.
It would replace stop signs that control traffic exiting west from the City Pier parking lot onto Railroad Avenue and from Lincoln Street west onto Railroad Avenue.
“The idea is to eliminate the two stop signs to better regulate the intersection,” Braudrick said.
Public Works and Utilities Director Craig Fulton is withholding judgement on the circle’s effectiveness.
“Preliminarily, it looks like it’s workable,” he said. “But I’d have to see more detail. Right now, it’s on a PowerPoint.
“Traffic circles are great if drivers know how to use the traffic circle,” he continued.
Braudrick said the circle is similar to the traffic control devices at intersections of narrow streets in heavily populated areas of Seattle.
He said city officials will seek funding for Phase 3 in 2016 and hope to begin architectural, engineering and construction work beginning in 2017.
“That’s our time line now,” he said.
“It all depends on state and federal grant funding.”
Completion of Phase 3 would fill “a missing piece” of the waterfront improvement project, Braudrick added.
“Right now, it just doesn’t look complete.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
