Mukilteo readies next stage of Lighthouse Park transformation

Published 10:51 pm Wednesday, April 29, 2009

MUKILTEO — Lost truck drivers have twice backed into the charming white picket fences that surround this city’s famous lighthouse.

Nobody was hurt in the accidents. But big trucks probably shouldn’t get that close to Mukilteo’s historic waterfront landmark.

Soon, they won’t have to.

A planned $1.4 million dollar facelift could remake the park’s ragged entrance by next spring. Design work on a second phase of improvements at Lighthouse Park is almost complete, and construction should begin in September.

A large, grassy plaza and a planned Native American-themed amphitheater could replace what is now a sort of decrepit meadow on Front Street, with weeds waving through cracked pavement.

“A lot of it is very harsh right now. It is like a sea of paving,” said John Barker, a design consultant working on the park.

Mukilteo’s goal is to completely transform Lighthouse Park, which it acquired from the state in 2003.

Although at the time it was technically the busiest day-use park in Washington, Mayor Joe Marine said, it was essentially a 13-acre parking lot.

An initial $3 million park renovation was completed last summer, and has transformed the south end of the park. Over the next decade, the ferry parking that dominates the park’s central section could also be replaced.

“It is going to be a park, not a parking lot,” Marine said.

For now, though, the city is dealing with the park’s north end.

One important step will be integrating the lighthouse into the park that bears its name.

Right now, no paths connect the lighthouse property to the rest of park. These improvements will do exactly that, Barker said.

A new bathroom building with artistic elements designed by members of the Tulalip Tribes is also planned, and Front Street will be raised to make wheelchair access easier. The amphitheater isn’t funded yet, but space in the park’s north end has been reserved.

Other steps should make the park easier for trucks to navigate.

The current paved circle at the foot of Front Street will become a wider round-about, with a massive driftwood log and a grassy center.

The city hopes to make it obvious for people that they are entering a park, Council President Randy Lord said.

“When you turn left off the Speedway there, you kind of get lost,” Lord said. “We want it to be a more inviting, more easy-to-understand place.”

The park’s boat ramp will not be effected by this phase of construction, but roughly 50 parking spaces could be lost, including about 10 spaces on Front Street.

Tom O’Day, who lives in a nearby condo complex, said he’s not looking forward to more drivers hunting for parking in the neighborhood. The park, though, will become a treasure.

“It is already more of a park than it ever was before,” he said, as he walked his chihuahua Tinkerbell through Lighthouse Park. “I couldn’t have believed that before they started.”

Chris Fyall: 425-339-3447, cfyall@heraldnet.com.