The Port of Woodland has secured $1.8 million in state grants to complete a long-planned transformation of its Austin Point property into a 90-acre public recreation area along the Lewis and Columbia rivers.
The funding, awarded by the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office, covers the engineering and construction of improvements including paved access roads, a parking lot, restrooms, trails, fish cleaning stations, lookouts and a primitive boat launch.
“This is a dividend to our port district of something that of this property being utilized, and available to everybody,” Port of Woodland Executive Director Jennifer Wray-Keene told The Reflector.
The project area, located just outside city limits off Dyke Road, has been used by locals for years despite a lack of infrastructure. Visitors currently access the site through a gravel road with makeshift parking. The project will formalize paved roads, parking access and install amenities for walking, fishing, picnicking and boating while preserving the site’s natural shoreline.
“Utilizing this naturally beautiful area and opening more of the area for people to walk, bike, boat, picnic and fish along the shore will be a huge benefit to the Port District. There will still be the native feel with the natural shore for boaters to launch from and provide a significant shoreline to fish and recreate from along the confluence of the Lewis to the Columbia,” Port of Woodland Commissioner Rob Rich stated in a news release.
Construction is expected to be complete in about two and a half years, though the project team has just resumed work following the recent funding award.
“We were notified on Friday that our project was now fully funded, so we're just getting all of the team together because we have not worked on the project for over a year now,” Wray-Keene said. “We’re going to start the planning process, look at the milestones and then determine a date for groundbreaking.”
The site will include a designated primitive boat launch on the Columbia River side, but no concrete ramp.
When asked, Wray-Keene stated that it was premature to determine if parking fees would be implemented, but emphasized the Port's goal to exempt Port District residents from any charges.
Additional investment secured for Rose Way infrastructure
The Port also received a second grant of $752,000 from the state to support infrastructure improvements along Rose Way, adjacent to its industrial park.
This funding will help extend roads and utilities to support private development by Trammell Crow, MMR and Actech, who together control nearly 100 acres of industrial-zoned land.
“The investment into private property development will provide relief to the residents of Woodland through jobs being local, spreading the tax burdens over these new investments, and bring new companies to Woodland,” Wray-Keene said in a news release.
The infrastructure plan is being developed in coordination with those companies and the City of Woodland to support current and future growth in the area.
“We identified projects that were stand-alone projects that served multiple properties rather than just one,” Wray-Keene told The Reflector.
