What’s up with Waterfront Park?

Published 5:00 am Saturday, November 11, 2006

The latest plan – restroom included – is on display Monday.

“Come,” boast some. “Test your galoshes on the stunning, salty beaches of our fare island. There are so many to choose from.”

But of the 53 total miles of island shoreline, only two-and-a-half are dedicated to the toe-dipping, oar-gripping public of Bainbridge Island.

Which is why Waterfront Park – with a quarter-mile of shoreline on Eagle Harbor that includes public boat access – is so important to so many islanders, said Winslow Tomorrow project manager Sandy Fischer.

“It really is the public’s waterfront,” she said of the roughly five-and-a-half-acre park.

Knowing that, the city at a public meeting in April sought counsel from about 60 people, who emphasized three priorities in their collective vision for the future of Waterfront Park: water-based recreation, environmental stewardship and more community gathering spaces.

From 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 13 at City Hall, the public will decide to what extent the city heeded those requests.

“The idea is to create a series of terraces that step up to the city and connect the town to the harbor,” Fischer said. “We want to make the park more permeable.”

Thus the plan divides the land into five separate “terraces” built into the southward sloping spine of Winslow.

Highlights would include wider, longer docks and a new “pedestrian pier” that swings from east to west across the harbor, connecting to an improved waterfront trail.

Also in the plans are new sport courts and an open-air performance shed near the east end of what would become the park’s main green space.

Theoretically resolved in the form of an “earth sheltered bathhouse” is the ever-contentious restroom situation.

A restroom had been slated for construction this year before plans were stalled.

Fischer said the bathhouse portion of the project – funds for which have already been allocated – will soon go to bid. As the top priority of the project, it is scheduled to be finished by next summer and would be dug into the hillside in the northwest corner of the park.

Kristin Tollefson, selected by the city to incorporate $40,000 worth of public art into and near the structure, will be at the meeting to present her ideas.

Detailed cost estimates for the rest of the project aren’t yet finished, but the city has applied for a $500,000 state grant – word of which should arrive in January – to pay for dinghy docks, shoreline restoration and better accessibility to the park for the handicapped.

If the grant money comes through, the City Council then must decide whether to match it.

Without matching funds, the money would have to be returned.

Though funding for the project was not included in the 2007 preliminary city budget, Fischer is hopeful that public support for the park, in combination with the new plans, could change that.

Parts of the design remain unclear, especially to the east of the property where the Washington State Ferries maintenance yard now sits.

The park plan includes in it the potential for changes at the ferry yard, among them a boat haulout facility, though no concrete plans for such a facility yet exist and would be contingent on whatever decisions about the land are made in the future between the city and WSF.

Plans for the area near where the new bathhouse would be built also remain unsettled.

Fischer said possibilities for the land include a multiple-story boat storage facility, a pavilion or, as it is currently, a tennis court.

Parking would essentially remain the same, though it would depend in part on the still-developing Bainbridge Island Senior Community Center renovation.

Fischer said the city is still seeking input about how to best meld the park into the rest of Winslow, hence Monday’s meeting and the city’s new interactive website (see box), where islanders can log on to share their opinions.

“It seems to be working well,” Fischer said of the website.

“It’s another way for people to be heard.”

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Park place

The city will present new plans for Waterfront Park from 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 13 at City Hall. The public can also visit the project’s website (accessible via the regular city websiste), which includes a section for comments and discussion.