Port to consider historical displays of fishing, mill history

Published 10:18 pm Sunday, June 14, 2009

EVERETT — On Tuesday, the Port of Everett commission will consider paying a Seattle firm $400,000 over the next five years to develop historical displays along the waterfront designed to promote tourism.

The company selected for the project is Belt Collins of Seattle, a planning and design firm that recently completed a project for the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation intended to inform visitors and inspire reflection about liberty.

The task in Everett will be to honor the city’s lumber, commercial fishing and boat building industries.

Belt Collins was one of six firms asked to develop proposals for the project, which is something the port agreed to do to ensure federal permits for its 12th Street marina project.

The company will develop a master plan for a series of displays based on a comprehensive history of the area commissioned by the port and developed by Larry and Jack O’Donnell.

Under a quick outline developed by Belt Collins, the displays would start inside a new Port Administration Building to be built in the area.

The building’s entryway would include glass panels on the area’s mills, fishing industry and boat builders. Other areas would have informative panels, ship rigging, ship hardware and sails screened with the three main themes.

Outside the building, near the yacht basin, will be a Fishermen’s Tribute Plaza that will include a sculpture that was recently commissioned by a private fundraising group. The sculpture will include landscaping, benches and a walkway.

Also planned is the installation of a large spinning drum winch, used to haul nets from the sea, which would include information on fish and fishing boats and equipment. Decorative paving will include an area that looks like a ship deck and designs that resemble a net and include a catch of sea creatures from Puget Sound and the North Pacific.

Along the marina walkways will be banners intended to steer visitors to the different sites and others that include information on the ship-building industry.

Also planned in the early outline is an area called the Cedar Room that would include displays on timber harvesting, the milling processes and lumber products. The area would include cedar decking, potted cedar trees and cedar benches with displays containing human interest stories.

The port’s Lisa Lefeber said the company would get underway to develop a more detailed plan this summer that would be installed over four years. The first part of the work will be in the new administration building, which should be ready late next year.

Lefeber said developing the project was a joint effort by the port, Historic Everett, the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation and the state’s historic preservation officer, Alison Brooks.

“I think we came together with something really good for Everett,” she said.

Lefeber said the Belt Collins proposal was selected because it seemed appropriate for an international port.

“They really got to the essence of what the port wanted to accomplish,” she said. “It’s about the history and the economics but it didn’t mimic a museum.”