Kalakala owner hopes to land former ferry in Port Angeles

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, December 23, 2003

PORT ANGELES — The owner of the art deco ferry Kalakala has formed a foundation and hired a director in this Olympic Peninsula town.

"The Kalakala is a part of our history, and we are hoping we can bring it back and make it an economic engine for the city," said Cherie Kidd, director of the Kalakala Alliance Foundation, at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon meeting Monday.

Kidd said she was seeking a "high-profile location" for the foundation office and a display of memorabilia from the 68-year-old boat, which once plied the waters between Seattle and Bremerton and between Port Angeles and Victoria, B.C.

The foundation was formed last week by the Steve Rodrigues of Tumwater, a retired construction project manager who paid $136,560 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Seattle for the formerly elegant, streamlined ferry in October.

Rodrigues, 52, asked chamber members to support a sponsorship proposal before the City Council that would open the door to U.S. Agriculture Department-guaranteed loans for restoring the Kalakala with a museum, restaurant and conference rooms.

"We are looking for a sponsoring community, and we’re really focusing on Port Angeles," Rodrigues said.

Kidd, an unsuccessful City Council candidate and member of a longtime local family, and Rodrigues hope to moor the rusting 276-foot vessel at a harbor site owned by Gerald Austin and Jack and Shirley Glaubert.

Rodrigues said he has until Feb. 19 to move the Kalakala from Lake Union in Seattle and is trying to arrange interim moorage in Everett.

So far $2,200 has been donated for restoration, he said.

With renovation costs estimated at $7 million, Rodrigues said he planned to sell Kalakala tokens and offer the 300 porthole windows on the eBay auction Web site for $10,000 each.

Each porthole owner would have "perpetual access to all activities on the vessel," a right that could be passed on to relatives, he said.

A native of Butte, Mont., Rodrigues and his seven siblings were orphaned when he was young.

He lived for a time in Idaho, returned to Butte to attend college, earned a civil engineering degree and wound up managing construction for companies such as Morrison Knudsen and Bechtel across the United States and as far away as Saudi Arabia.

Since retiring he has promoted five recreational developments without success, four in Western Washington and one in Butte, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. Two were rejected by local agencies and the others failed for lack of financing.

The Kalakala was put up for sale at a bankruptcy auction last summer, and Rodrigues wound up with the boat after two higher offers were disqualified.

The vessel last carried passengers in 1967. It was later grounded on a mud flat in Kodiak, Alaska, and converted for seafood processing.

A Seattle sculptor, Peter Bevis, salvaged the Kalakala in 1998 and had it towed back to Seattle, but he and others were unable to raise enough money for restoration.

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