A new Welcome Center isn’t the only renovation coming to the Northwest Maritime Center in the New Year.

It might seem incongruous that damage done by a king tide event on Dec. 20, 2018, won’t be fixed until the early winter months of 2024, but the Northwest Maritime Center’s chief operating officer, Katie Oman, explained that it’s taken time to secure the needed resources and ensure the job will be done properly.

Molly McCarthy, communications director for the Northwest Maritime Center, recounted how the storm surge that damaged the center’s beach also caused heavy erosion at the base of the concrete stairs leading down to the beach.

“The wind-driven water scoured sediment away from the concrete beach stairs, exposing the footings, dislodging some embedded architectural boulders, and causing some of the pavers in the courtyard area to fail,” said McCarthy who added that the storm surge also dislodged some large logs, which were previously anchored on the beach, as a form of shoreline protection. “Large driftwood logs were slammed into an electrical panel at the foot of the pier, crushing some conduits and damaging the enclosure.”

The Northwest Maritime Center not only engaged the architects of Seattle-based Miller Hull to lead the design and estimating process, but also sought public assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the damage, based on a federal disaster declaration.

Although the design work began in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic forced an intermission that didn’t allow that work to resume in earnest until 2021.

Oman noted that the Northwest Maritime Center has been diligent in obtaining all the required permits from the city of Port Townsend, local tribal governments, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Washington State Departments of Ecology and Fish and Wildlife.

However, those permits only allow construction work to be performed during the local fish window, which began July 16 of this year and ends Feb. 15 of next year, and the project’s federal funding required it to be open for public bidding by contractors, which Oman projected to take place this month.

“We hope to start this work ASAP, and complete it before the end of January 2024,” McCarthy said. “The construction period is estimated to be one to two months.”

Oman elaborated that construction aims to repair the exposed foundation of the concrete pathway and beach stairs at the plaza, as well as to protect the main building deck supports, after the “chronic” beach erosion she attributed to the major storms of the past five years.

The planned repairs include excavating the upper beach sand and gravel at the undermined concrete step foundations, and pouring a new concrete footing, all below grade, to fill the voids and deepen the foundation, to avoid exposing that foundation to the elements again.

Oman used the term “beach nourishment” to describe the process of placing sand and gravel in the existing upper beach, with the additional placement of large boulders also planned, to help protect the beach and other structures from further damage.

“Velocity will remain open as usual during construction, as will the Northwest Maritime Center’s library,” McCarthy said.