Port talks Marina at coffee

Half a dozen La Conner residents accepted Port of Skagit Executive Director Sara Young’s invitation to coffee at the La Conner Marina last Wednesday. She hopes to reach more residents at an open house Dec. 1.

Young brought Planning and Development Director Heather Rogerson, Communications Director Linda Tyler and a Power Point graphic. Dashed lines outlined the 13 acres on North Third Street north of Sullivan Slough. The Port has “amassed the pieces of the puzzle,” every property, for which the Port has a vision, Young said. “We want this property to be financially sustainable.” That is the necessity.

Optimizing its use requires both opening up the space to the Swinomish Channel and redeveloping the inland-water infrastructure of the Marina, which will be “really expensive,” Young noted. The Port must bring in a new mix of businesses at higher lease rates to draw a combination of marine and tourist customers.

“We need to figure out the next steps for the highest and best use. That happens over a long horizon, more of a 10-20 year horizon,” Young said. “The real winning ticket means you have a whole system working together. We are trying to preserve the opportunity to do something that will be more cohesive and comprehensive.”

Getting people – residents as well as tourists – to the waterfront is the first focus. Channel Drive resident Dave Buchan praised La Conner’s boardwalk for its joining people to boating activity, a natural attraction. He has long championed re-opening a chandlery, a boating supplies store, and envisions food service amenities, starting with coffee.

A boardwalk from the Marina to downtown, the right mix of businesses and even trails are what consultants call “activation” Young pointed out, and can take up to 20 years to fully develop. There is $45,000 in next year’s budget for creating pedestrian trails. The Port has a decades old design plan from local landscape architect Curt Miller.

Young is confident the Marina “has something to offer that’s really distinctive.” She is aware it must be developed in a way to not “overtour-ify” it, that the small town setting, with a necessary walk downtown after mooring their boats has the dog along thinking “it’s really cool.”

Staff and consultants are taking a dynamic, holistic approach to planning. Young realizes the May presentation in Maple Hall threw out a variety of possibilities, including housing. The Port’s request for a marine industrial zone chapter in the La Conner municipal code added another variable. “May was probably the starting point of the conversation,” she said. “It’s more right now about listening,” There is more than one meaning when the question of “what’s the value of the property” is asked.

The community participating in an open house workshop in La Conner Dec. 1 “wraps up this phase of the process,” Young said. “We want to give people the chance to have a conversation with us.”