Edmonds Yacht Club project waiting for anchor tenant

The Edmonds Yacht Club’s new home will likely be only 20 parking spaces large, but it will help secure the future of an organization on the rebound.

No designs have been created, but a location for a new clubhouse on the parking lot between Arnie’s Restaurant and the Port of Edmonds administration building has been agreed upon, officials with the club and the Port said this week.

According to a feasibility study conducted by the club and presented to the Port, however, the club needs to find an anchor tenant for its new clubhouse building before it can move out of its current home beneath Anthony’s Home Port Restaurant.

“We’re looking at anybody and everybody that we can come up with,” said Ted Newton, the club’s commodore.

That means restaurants, but also dentists or doctors, or professional service companies. The club has hired CB Richard Ellis to search for candidates, he said.

The club would like to identify an anchor tenant by June 2008, Newton said. Once one is identified, the club will design and construct their new clubhouse, and hopefully move in before summer 2010.

The move is being prompted by fears of increased rents at the club’s current home.

Currently, the club pays $19,000 a year to the Port of Edmonds for the space beneath Anthony’s, Port director Chris Keuss said.

The club feared that rate could double, commodore Newton said.

While the Yacht Club has been adding members, there was no way the club could afford nearly $40,000 a year for its clubhouse, so it started a few years ago developing plans for a building of their own that would have space to rent out to a large anchor tenant.

Last year, attempts to identify an anchor tenant revealed nothing. But, this year the club is more serious, Newton said.

“At this time last year, (the clubhouse) was just a dream,” he said. “Now we actually have the land leased. We have a feasibility study that is complete. We have soil samples that are complete.

“At this point, it’s only a simple matter of coming up with an anchor tenant,” Newton said.

Under an agreement with the Port, the yacht club has about three years to move into its new building before rents will be raised, Keuss said.

According to a June presentation to the Port commission, the yacht club is looking for a clubhouse that would have banquet seating for 200, a dance floor, and would be generally larger than their current space, including more office space, more storage and more room in the galley.

The Port isn’t sure what it will do when the yacht club leaves its current space, Keuss said. But, as there are currently no vacancies in Port-owned buildings on the waterfront, he’s sure it won’t sit empty.

“There are a probably a lot of options,” Keuss said. “It would be a highly desirable rental space.”