Modifies original version to correct misquote of Executive Director Jeff Robb.
PORT ANGELES — An environmental consultant was at Peninsula Plywood’s abandoned manufacturing plant Monday to begin assessing cleanup necessary for demolishing the industrial site, Port of Port Angeles Executive Director Jeff Robb said.
Robb was giving an update on operations of the port agency, which owns the Marine Drive property, to port commissioners and Port Angeles City Council members at a morning-long joint meeting at the North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center.
While reviewing the port’s Central Waterfront Master Plan, Robb noted that before the closed KPly mill was leased by PenPly’s investors, the port was planning to tear down the plant.
“We’ve come full circle,” Robb said.
The land should be made available for marine trades, Robb said.
But the economic climate will prevent the port from actively marketing the parcel until the economy rebounds, he added.
Still, the port is anxious to clean up the property, said John Calhoun, port commission president.
“As a key job creator, we’ve got to get it done,” he said.
PenPly closed in November after staying open for 20 months, leaving $1,042,102 in unpaid bills to several public agencies and about 130 people out of work.
All Port of Port Angeles commissioners City Council members attended Monday’s meeting except for Councilwoman Brooke Nelson.
City Manager Kent Myers said Nelson was on vacation.
Other topics discussed at the 2½-hour meeting included the following:
— Lincoln Park trees: Landscape architect Juliet Vong, president of HBB Landscape Architecture in Seattle, told the group that a preliminary master plan for Lincoln Park will be presented at an April 4 open house.
The meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the City Council chambers,
The plan will include proposed specific features for the recreation site west of downtown, which has trees that the port wants to remove to improve runway visibility, an aspect of the park’s makeover that has riled some residents.
The master plan will not focus on that aspect of the park’s face-lift, city Recreation Services Manager Richard Bonine said in a later interview.
“We’ll provide a master plan that hopefully accommodates the public’s wishes for a spectacular community park and still accommodates the port’s wishes to eliminate any obstructions,” Bonine said.
Vong told the joint meeting that surveys of public opinion indicated that the public wanted to preserve trails, ponds and a wetland and wanted to maintain the site’s character as a “neighborhood park.”
Preserving those features “was pretty consistent across the board,” Vong said.
Citizens said maintaining the trail system, she added, “was important to buffer the community as we move forward into the future.”
“The existing uses were pretty sacred,” she said. “There are a lot of people who love this park.”
A cost for the project has not been set.
A final master plan will be released in May.
“The goal is to make this a true community asset,” City Councilman Patrick Downie said.
— Composites industry: Robb said the port, is aggressively marketing the North Olympic Peninsula’s budding composite industry, will attend the JEC Composites show in Paris to promote the Olympic Composites Corridor, an area that includes Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap counties.
Representatives from Angeles Composite Technologies Inc. of Port Angeles, a port tenant, and Sequim Marine Sciences Lab of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, also known as Battelle, also are attending this week’s composites show.
The effort is “synergistic,” Robb said.
“A regional attempt to bringing composites forward is much more powerful,” he said, noting, for example, that Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner is made mostly from composite materials.
Myers said it was important to keep the support of state officials in the effort.
The state Department of Commerce also is attending the Paris event.
— The city’s waterfront development project: The city is completing various state and federal land use environmental permits for the $17 million project, and a building permit application is on the way, city Economic and Community Development Director Nathan West said.
“The biggest one we’re waiting for is the Army Corps of Engineers,” he said.
In Phase 1, which is already funded, Railroad Avenue will be revamped from the MV Coho ferry dock to Front Street for $3.26 million.
Phase 2 includes beach restoration and creation of a park between Oak Street and the Valley Creek Estuary.
Railroad Avenue and Oak Street, which are connected, will become narrower to allow for wider sidewalks and more parking spaces, and a waterfront walkway will be built on the west side of the ferry terminal this summer.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
