MUKILTEO – Ivar’s Mukilteo Landing, the waterfront restaurant severely damaged by a storm in October 2003, is set to reopen early next year after more than $2 million in repairs.
“We hope to be open by the beginning of February,” said Bob Donegan, president of Ivar’s Inc.
A walk-up window on the street side of the building has been open during the closure of the sit-down restaurant.
Located at 710 Front St., next to Mukilteo’s ferry dock, Ivar’s was hit hard on Oct. 28 last year when a storm pounded waves through the restaurant’s windows and lifted up the building. No one was injured, as customers were evacuated before the biggest waves hit, but the damage was extensive.
An insurance adjuster first estimated it would require about $200,000 worth of repairs. That proved to be way too hopeful for the structure, parts of which date back to the mid-1920s.
In the end, two rows of pilings holding up the restaurant had to be replaced and workers put back 330 cubic yards of fill sand and concrete that had been washed out, Donegan said. Inside, steel framework was installed to strengthen the building.
The restaurant’s interior also has been changed. The entire dining area is now on one level to make it more accessible to disabled customers. There are more water-view windows and doors to the outdoor deck. Also, a new banquet room is located on the restaurant’s south end. The main entrance also has been moved to the north end, away from the ferry traffic.
A waterproof hatch door from a Navy destroyer now provides access to the pilings and utility boxes underneath. That’s one of the “quirky, Ivar-like” items gracing the new interior, Donegan said.
One of the others is the famed carp sculpture. The 450-pound wooden fish was washed into Puget Sound by the storm and then found two weeks later at Picnic Point Park.
About a dozen of the senior employees at the Mukilteo Landing restaurant have been retained, but Ivar’s will need another 30 to 40 workers at the location. Applicants can contact the company via its Web site at www.keepclam.com or at 206-587-6500.
Donegan said last year’s storm hit in a “freak way” that maximized the damage, but he has no qualms about the building’s sturdiness after all the work.
“The building should be as safe as anything build along Puget Sound in the past decade,” he said.
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