EVERETT – Port Gardner this week decided to paint its two, giant new neighbors in shades of gray.
It’s up to the Port of Everett and its paintbrushes whether that shade will be light gray, aluminum gray, mint gray or some other shade of gray.
When the Port of Everett bought a pair of orange, 175-foot gantry cranes from the Port of Seattle and placed them at the South Terminal Wharf, some neighbors were upset.
A few residents, such as Howie Bargreen, protested the arrival of the cranes and even filed a lawsuit to have them removed. Bargreen, with several other waterfront neighbors, spent thousands on the suit.
They argued that the cranes, which will eventually be moved farther south, obstructed people’s views of the bay. Neighbors also feared that once the cranes are operating, they will increase the traffic, noise and pollution levels of the residential waterfront.
In the end, the cranes stayed. But the Port of Everett let neighbors pick from a palette to change the cranes’ safety orange appearance.
At a June neighborhood meeting, port officials presented residents with a pamphlet of several dozen industrial paint samples, urging them to pick a new color for the cranes. There was signal red, oxide yellow, architectural brown and safety purple.
Should they pick a color that’s pretty to look at, like blue, or one that’s easy to look past? Should they paint it to blend with nature – blue on the land side to blend with ocean and green on the ocean side to blend with land?
Port of Everett Executive Director John Mohr said last month that the neighbors could pick up to three colors.
“It’ll be kind of fun to see what they come up with,” Mohr said. “I think the one thing we can all agree on is that we don’t like Port of Seattle orange.”
Some at the meeting chuckled at the port’s crane color swatches, but neighborhood chairman Walter Selden said the cranes are a serious concern. He gave the first votes to those neighbors whose houses look out on the cranes.
Those neighbors each picked a different shade of gray, hoping the gray would blend with the water.
At the neighborhood meeting this week, residents worried about the cranes being one more industrial-colored fixture on the waterfront. But when it came to a vote, they overwhelmingly sided with those who see the cranes out their windows.
Resident Debra Marassi of Sevenich Drive is one of those. She could not be reached this week about the choice of gray, but said last month that almost anything is better than orange.
“Of course, our preference would be that they just mysteriously go away, but knowing that’s not going to happen, it would be better to have a color that blends with the water so they’re not quite so intrusive,” she said.
Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.
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