After years of what many tenants called "neglect" to the North and South Leschi and Lakewood marinas, the city has allotted $2 million for their restoration.
Nearly 50 concerned marina tenants attended the Boat Moorage Restoration Project open house on Thursday, July 26. Seattle Parks and Recreation held this first public meeting to receive direct input on how the money should be used.
Project manager Kelly Goold, of Seattle Parks and Recreation's Planning and Development Division said, "We're seeking public input to help us with schematic design. The more directed input we could get the more it will aid us in getting a better design."
Goold said he wants to get the most of the construction dollars, but to do that the project team needed to hear from the community directly before creating a schematic design.
According to Goold, since many of the facilities were built in the '40s up to the '60s they simply need to be updated and repaired.
"It's a renovation project; it'll be nothing new. It's sort of the same thing - just better, essentially," Goold said.
A PRELIMINARY STEP
After Goold gave a presentation of the project's intentions and the process of getting plans approved by several levels of government, the tenants spoke up quickly and sarcastically about the limits of the project.
One tenant joked about whether the cookies at the open house would be taken out of the project's budget.
Permitting specialist Nicole Faghin spoke to the tenants about the environmental issues that the schematic design must accommodate to increase the chances of approval from the city, state and federal governments.
"You can't just fix what's broken, unfortunately. We need to know what it is you want us to do so we can take it to the next level and say, 'They dreamed this,' and then we'll come back and tell you the reality," Faghin said.
Although Seattle Parks and Recreation stated that the meeting was a preliminary step to creating the schematic design, some boat owners struggled to accept that not all of their concerns will be addressed in this project, or at least immediately addressed.
SETTING PRIORITIES
After dividing into three groups for each marina the tenants eventually focused more on giving input for what needs to be done instead of the perceived limitations of the project.
South Leschi tenants said their top priority was fixing the breakwater, and North Leschi tenants' primary concerns were safety, maintenance and security.
But in between explaining what needs to be fixed, tenants voiced doubt about how the $2 million can restore all three marinas.
Even if the money doesn't stretch enough to take care of all the necessary repairs, tenants agreed the funding for this project is overdue and were eager to talk about how the money should be used.
Tim Davidson, a North Leschi marina tenant, said, "I think the project's great. It needs to be done. The biggest things are accessibility and safety. There's been a neglect problem in the past, and now people are personally fixing popped-up boards."
Although Davidson said the project should have been done 15 years ago, he emphasized that the marina's conditions are not the fault of the marina management, but the city's.
"We need to have money come back for marina maintenance, not into a general city fund," Davidson said.
It may be the lack of city care or awareness that contributed to Lakewood marina tenant John Herd voicing that he didn't want the parks department involved with the marinas at all.
Herd said, "The marina should have nothing to do with the parks department. Anything they do is a negative.
"I think our marina is fantastic, extremely well-run because of the concessionary at Lakewood exclusively," he continued, "so to include someone else in the process is a mistake."
But the Lakewood marina tenants left the open house much sooner than the North and South Leschi groups, which Faghin said is because the Lakewood marina has the least need of repair.
'REPLACE AND REPAIR' ONLY
Since the project focuses on restoration though, Goold said tenants don't need to worry about a complete overhaul of the marinas.
"It's time to replace and repair; it's more of an update. It's really kind of the same footprint," Goold said.
Goold said he does not expect there to be any work done to the shoreline or for the construction to interfere with the marinas' tenants. However, Goold did say that it has not been decided where the boat owners who moor their boats at the marinas will take their boats during construction.
At this point, as Goold said, the entire project is quite preliminary and no dates have been set for construction.
"We're getting input for the schematic design now. From that we set up the priorities of what the first phase of construction will be and then the development phase. Then it'll be the permitting phase, and after that the construction phase," Goold explained.
[[In-content Ad]]
