EVERETT — A major over-haul underneath Highway 529 on the Everett waterfront, known as West Marine View Drive, is being celebrated today by the Port of Everett. It marks the completion of a 20-year quest to replace aging bulkheads at the Port. This final phase of the project along West Marine Drive is “a critical access point”, Port CEO and Executive Director, Lisa Lefeber, tells EverettPost.com.
“It’s a critical access point for Naval Station Everett. It’s the fleet route to the seaport, so making sure we have resilient infrastructure is critical,” Lefeber says. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned at 5:30 p.m. that will include local elected officials and Port staff.
The bulkhead, Lefeber tells EverettPost.com, is “a critical one because it was actually holding up the southbound lanes of Highway 529.” Wood pilings for the bulkhead have now been replaced with steel piles to maintain stability and prevent shoreline erosion, according to the Port. “It ensures that the southbound lanes of the highway didn’t fall into the water,” Lefeber adds.
It completes 20 years’ worth of pier upgrades by the Port, says Lefeber. “Over the last 20 years, we’ve been rebuilding all the aging sections of the bulkhead in the central marina. It started in 2005 with the area by the old conference center and then over the years rebuilt all the different segments. Segment E is the last remaining one.”
Work on the final 165-foot section along Hwy 529 near Port Gardner Landing and the Grand Avenue Park Bridge cost $6.75 million to replace the 80-year-old bulkhead to reinforce Hwy 529 which carries an estimated 11,000 daily trips, according to the Port.
In addition to bulkhead reinforcing the road surface, Lefeber tells EverettPost.com, “we were able to provide a landscape buffer between pedestrian traffic and highway traffic which is a good public safety feature as well.”
Regarding the pedestrian traffic and bikers or rollers, she notes, “It’s where we have our summer concert series. It gets a little tight around there so we were able to add quite a bit of space as well. Before the pedestrian trail was right up against the road.”
New decking, landscaping, and an ADA-compliant connection to the waterfront trail system are included in the upgrade.
Bergeson Construction, an Oregon-based firm, was awarded the contract as the sole bidder. The price tag came in above the engineer’s estimates due in part to tariff uncertainty, but the Port secured additional federal funding to close the gap.
Lefeber singled out a group of elected officials that helped secure the project funding, “And so with the help of our Congressman and State Senators and Representatives we were able to get some funding–it didn’t cover it all—but it helped relieve a little bit of it to rebuild that bulkhead.”
Over the past two decades, the Port has replaced more than 2,900 ft. of bulkhead with modern steel sheet piles, ensuring stability for the shoreline and protecting against erosion. The project was financed through a combination of Port revenues, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Washington state capital budget.