Design contract for Fletcher Landing Road end gets council’s nod

Published 9:03 am Sunday, December 21, 2014

The city of Bainbridge Island has hired a California company to help design the long-awaited road-end improvement project on Fletcher Landing Road.

The city council agreed on a 6-0 vote to hire AECOM Technical Services, Inc. of Long Beach, California to help design the road-end project. The contract is for $43,233, and the agreement will lead to a finished design that the city can use to seek bids for the project.

The project includes the removal of a concrete sea wall that is falling apart, plus stormwater improvements, trails, a viewing bench, beach repairs and native landscaping.

The city council previously approved the scope of the project in October.

At last week’s council meeting, Deputy City Manager Morgan Smith said the particulars of the site — at the 40-foot-wide end of Fletcher Bay Road — would likely mean a project design that doesn’t exactly match what’s already on paper.

“It’s a complex project, there is a lot to it in terms of the location at the waterfront and the new [Shoreline Master Program] requirements,” Smith said.

“It’s not particularly straightforward. But we are hopeful that we will get where we want to be,” she said.

The city hopes to have a finished design in hand by April so construction can happen in August.

“We are aiming to begin construction during next year’s fish window,” Smith said. “Which is somewhat aggressive timeline at this point given the permitting requirements that we expect to face.”

Smith said the agreement was put before the council in December, rather than January, so four weeks that could be devoted to the permitting process would not be lost.

Smith cautioned council members to not look at the conceptual drawings and expect the finished project to be completely in sync with those plans.

It’s a complicated site and the permitting requirements are “quite dense,” she said.

“I want to just underscore that those are conceptual designs at this point. And we are now going to go out in the real world and see exactly what can and should emerge,” Smith said.

The road to Fletcher Landing was established in 1899, and the spot boasts sunset views of the Kitsap Peninsula and the Olympics. Disputes over public access erupted in the late 1990s after property owners put up a locked gate, and the area was reclaimed for the public after a nearly decade-long legal battle between the city and road end residents.