Construction resumes on delayed Port Angeles arts and events hall

Construction is once again underway at the $50 million Field Arts and Events Hall project in Port Angeles. Ground was first broken on the 41,000-square-foot building, which aims to be a new center for the arts, events and community in Port Angeles, in October 2019. Work was temporarily halted in March 2020 (for around six weeks) at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project was put on hold again in February 2021, this time due to funding issues, with work not resuming until last month. The center is being developed and will be owned and operated by the nonprofit Port Angeles Waterfront Center. It is being funded largely through donations.

At the time of the last construction hold, general contractor Mortenson had topped out the building and completed work on its shell and core. Construction restarted on the final phase of the project, inside the building, on Aug. 1. The hall is now set to open in July 2023, some two years after it was originally projected to be complete.

Local news outlet My Clallam County reports that $40 million in funding has been raised so far and the Port Angeles Waterfront Center board is confident it will raise the additional funds needed to complete the project on schedule. The events hall is being built on land donated in 2016 by local arts patron Dorothy Field. LMN designed the new waterfront venue which, when complete, will be the largest nonprofit building and investment in Clallam County’s history. It will also be home to a 500-seat performance auditorium; water view conference and event space for groups of up to 400 people; coffee shop; catering kitchen; and gallery space exhibiting the works of local, regional and national artists.

LMN said it designed the project to capture the “spectacular natural environment of Port Angeles, framed by the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains.” Public space that rises from the street to a second level provides wrap-around views of the city, the water and the mountains. Aqua green tones, wood ceilings and curtainwall mullions, and forest and waterfront beach landscape materials further connect the experience of the building with its place.

The Field Arts and Events Hall is part of a bigger project to revitalize the waterfront and is the first of three buildings dedicated to the arts, culture and science planned by Port Angeles Waterfront Center. The two additional buildings are a marine discovery center and a cultural center for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.

The project team for the events hall also includes Stantec, mechanical engineer; Swenson Say Faget, structural engineer; Walker Macy, landscape architect; Zenovic & Associates, civil engineer; Krazan, geotechnical engineering; Vanir Construction Management, owner’s representative; Jaffe Holden, acoustics; and The Shalleck Collaborative, theater and AV consultant. Local subcontractors include Olympic Electric, Stirrett Johnsen, Jamestown Excavation, and Angeles Concrete Products.

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