PORT ANGELES — City planning staff are a few hundred thousand dollars closer to making a park proposed for the city’s west downtown waterfront a reality after receiving a state recreation grant last week.
The city has secured a $302,984 grant from the state Recreation and Conservation Office, or RCO, to develop nearly 1 acre of the 3-acre West End Park proposed for the west end of the downtown waterfront between Valley Creek Estuary Park and North Oak Street, said Nathan West, the city’s community and economic development director.
Matching funds
The city will match the amount of the grant with its own funds, West said, which have been incorporated into the budget approved by the City Council for the project.
West said the city originally requested $468,000 for this specific grant, though he said RCO staff told him the difference might be found in RCO funds unused from previous years.
“[RCO staff members are] working to determine whether or not that additional funding is available,” West said.
The proposed park is part of the city’s larger $17 million waterfront transportation improvement plan, envisioned to improve city-owned portions of the waterfront from the Valley Creek estuary to City Pier.
The $3.9 million first phase of the larger improvement plan encompasses improvements that have been made to West Railroad Avenue and the concrete esplanade being built over the shoreline parallel to the road.
Building in stages
Once funding has been secured, city staff plan to build the park in stages, with two priorities being two small beaches just east of the Valley Creek estuary and a paved portion of the Olympic Discovery Trail built through the park.
These elements are expected to cost about $2.4 million.
The full gamut of planned park amenities, which include a spray park — a feature that sprays water so users can play in it — and a paved, circular plaza near the existing whale vertebra sculpture, is estimated to total $3.2 million.
After the recent RCO grant, West said the city has between $487,000 and $322,000 left to secure before construction on the first two stages of the park can begin.
“I’m highly confident we’re going to locate funding to make sure we can move forward with a West End Park [construction bid advertisement] early next year at the latest,” West said.
The West End Park project failed to be awarded a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that the city applied for, West said, and city staff are waiting to hear about a request for a $211,000 federal security grant that would fund lighting and security cameras at the park.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
