By Pepper Fisher

PORT ANGELES – A long-awaited repair project at the City Pier in Port Angeles has gotten underway, but it means the City Pier parking lot will be closed until sometime in March.

Nordland Construction has begun to repair a damaged section of sidewalk that has been closed since 2019. The work involves replacing a failed stormwater line and fortifying the adjacent shoreline armoring.

The sidewalk was damaged by the upheaval of tree roots, leading to its closure 4 years ago, but the process of getting environmental clearances to perform the work wasn’t completed until September.

In addition to the repairs, pedestrian ramps within the City Pier parking lot, including the corner of Lincoln Street and Railroad Avenue, will be replaced and made ADA compliant.

While work is underway, the City Pier Parking Lot will be closed to the public. Visitors of Feiro Marine Life Center and City Pier are encouraged to park in other downtown City parking areas.

While we’re on the subject of the City Pier, we asked City Manager if he could give us an update on the Viewing Tower, which was closed to the public in November following a routine maintenance inspection that found serious structure issues.

West said the City just received a comprehensive report on what the problems are, but there’s one more thing staff needs.

“We’ve actually received that report back, but the component of that report that we need probably the most, we haven’t received yet. And that’s the engineer’s estimates on the cost of what it’s going to take to actually make those repairs happen. So that’s a key element of information that we don’t have yet. And therefore, we’re still in a bit of a holding pattern on that, but I’m hopeful any day now we will have those costs and be moving forward and looking at how we budget for the fix of that.”

(Staff photo)