PORT ANGELES – Construction may be restarting soon on a downtown Port Angeles arts and events center.

Field Arts and Events Hall executive director Steve Raider-Ginsburg says the board of directors will meet this month and could decide to re-engage with the construction company to bring back crews to finish the project. The news comes on the heels of a one-million-dollar gift from the Elizabeth B. McGraw Foundation to go toward the final construction costs. McGraw recently moved to the Sequim area and was impressed with Field Arts Hall…

“It put tremendous amount of wind in our sails. We’re right at the timing in the shell-and-core phase, in which we had planned to be in touch with our construction, Mortensen our subs, and bring people back onto the ground to work to finish. So, our board of directors is meeting in two weeks, and we are going to review everything at that point, to have a board vote to determine when and working with consultation with our construction company to get boots on the ground. We are eagerly anticipating that,” said Raider-Ginsburg.

Raider-Ginsburg told the Port Angeles Business Association this week, the goal is to get the building interior finished and open in the first quarter of next year.

The exterior of the building was completed last year, and the project was paused as fundraising continued. Eighty seven percent of the money had been raised by this month. The overall project is pegged at $50-million dollars and so far, it has come in about 422 thousand dollars under budget.