Efforts to revitalize downtown Aberdeen continue with applications for funding, and officials are optimistic about getting the millions needed to complete the work.
Cary Bozeman, the city’s consultant who’s spearheaded the work with the Aberdeen Revitalization Movement, updated the City Council at its Wednesday night meeting on the project since he started working with the city a year ago. Some of the project’s initial goals include creating a gateway center in partnership with Greater Grays Harbor to draw tourists to the area, a riverfront park displaying the history of the area’s timber industry and slowing the traffic on Wishkah Street.
The plan had originated as a three-year project, but Bozeman said it will likely take longer.
Bozeman said securing funding has been at the forefront of the effort. He added that the Trust for Public Lands, a non-profit organization in Seattle that creates parks and protects public land, has become a potential partner for the city to purchase property along the Chehalis River. If an agreement is reached, the trust will spend a year raising money before purchasing the property, Bozeman said.
“It’s much more than a park on the river,” Bozeman said during the meeting. “It might even encourage a developer to think about building condominiums or apartments or that sort of thing next to it on the river. It encourages investment.”
The gateway center with Greater Grays Harbor envisioned for the eastern edge of the downtown area continues to see progress, Bozeman said, with $62,000 granted to the project last month for a planning and feasibility study. But the building, he added, doesn’t yet follow a business plan. The building would, ideally, welcome tourists to the area. Bozeman said an estimated 6 million vehicles come through Aberdeen each year.
“So we now have money to begin taking a realistic look at this gateway idea and investing in a business plan that would show who might own it, who might operate it, how it’s going to get built,” he said.
In another attempt to secure funding to purchase property, Bozeman said the city, for the first time ever, has approached the state’s capital budget, which funds projects for cities and counties throughout the state. The city’s proposal for $1.2 million is working its way through legislative budget channels, he said.
“It’s a very political process,” Bozeman said, adding that for every grant there are four other applicants in search of funding. “But do I think Aberdeen will rise to the top of the pecking order? Yeah, I do.”
Bozeman said Aberdeen’s high unemployment rate and low per-capita income should be good selling points for the application.
The state Department of Transportation, Bozeman said, has also approved a request to consider a new traffic design for Wishkah Street that would slow traffic and make the stretch of Highway 101 more friendly to pedestrians, cyclists and parking. Bozeman added that slowing traffic down would investment incentives for property along that street.
“People that own all those buildings downtown, they’re not going to reinvest in those buildings unless we do something with the infrastructure,” he said, adding that the project would require a grant from the state DOT of $100,000 to pay for the design of the street. Costs for the actual work, Bozeman said, are estimated at between $5 million and $10 million, and would come from the state’s transportation budget.
“Believe me, given the money that transportation people in this state spend on other areas besides Grays Harbor, that’s very little money,” he said, citing the $2.4 billion spent to build the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. “We have a great argument for receiving resources.”
At the end of the presentation, Bozeman announced that, following his year-long contract with the city, he would be volunteering his time to help continue downtown revitalization efforts.
“It’s been a tough budget year for the city,” he said. “I’m kind of emotionally connected to this mission. … It gives me something to do and I like it.”
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