A concert hall? Housing? Group eyes ambitious redevelopment near Bainbridge ferry terminal
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND – Could the large waterfront parking areas near the state ferry terminal on Eagle Harbor one day be home to a concert hall, housing and green space? A development group is at this point at least floating the idea of an ambitious project that would reshape one of the two main entrances to Bainbridge Island.
A slick promotional video for what is at this point a conceptual vision for the area near the ferry terminal surfaced in Bainbridge Island’s main Facebook group in October and seized no shortage of attention. The pitch video pictures a large glowing concert hall, residential spaces and green areas.
Currently that space is home to private parking lots and a handful of buildings, all under a mix of ownership. Kitsap Transit owns a chunk of property and a bike storage barn there. The largest section of the parking is held by the corporation Winslow Marine LLC.
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“If you think about it now, this site is really just a parking lot, and it’s not doing much for the environment, and it’s not doing much for the human experience either,” Bainbridge Island-based architect Matthew Coates says in the video. “Imagine if we could essentially return this site to its ecological status that it was before we ever showed up here, collecting rainwater, energy production, all of the thing we can do to create that holistic building environment and make it safe and enjoyable at the same time.”
He adds: “One of the things that’s most unique about this project is the site. It literally is the terminus for the ferry traffic that comes in and anybody and everybody that goes to the Kitsap Peninsula is going to come by this site and this building. It gives us an opportunity to actually attract visitors and acts, musicians from the other side of the water, and it’s almost like an extension of Seattle in that way.”
Speaking with the Kitsap Sun, Bainbridge Island’s Rik Langendoen, an environmental consultant and local spokesman for the project, said plans for the development are in a feasibility phase and noted that the project team has been having “exploratory” conversations with select landowners.
Langendoen said that the conceptual designs that appeared in the video are being revised based on feedback given by the community but said that generally the vision for the development includes the concert hall, housing that ranges from affordable to luxury, office and retail areas and green space. The concert hall, which would have a "state of the art" sound system, has been envisioned as having seats for 500 to 600 people, though that may change depending on public feedback, he said.
The project is being proposed by the Polish development company Cavatina and its CEO, who Langendoen said owns a home on the island. Langendoen declined to identify the man by name, saying that he was a “very private person.” A promotional video connected to the development that was posted online in June identifies the company’s CEO as Michal Dziuda.
“His perspective was, if the public flat out didn’t want it, he would just drop it,” Langendoen said. “Contrary to a lot of the comments, ‘He’s a money-hungry developer,’ – no, quite the contrary. This project would cost him money, it would not be a profit-making venture, that is almost guaranteed. It’s almost impossible to make this project profit-making, but he’s willing to seed the project and to make it happen, assuming that there’d be some other parties willing to come in as philanthropists to help the project be completed. He’s willing to make it happen if the community wants it.”
If, after a public-engagement phase and a reworking of the project, the community wasn’t interested in the development, the effort wouldn’t go forward, Langendoen said.
“What we’d want is a community asset,” he said. “That’s what Cavatina would want. I think everybody in the design team would want that.”
Cavatina is also in the process of establishing a nonprofit arm in Washington called Fiducia Foundation USA, based on Bainbridge Island, that will promote efforts in arts and culture, improving K-12 education and affordable housing, Langendoen said.
On Tuesday, Bainbridge Island City Council members began discussing the future of city property currently home to Bainbridge Island’s police station, which is adjacent to where the Cavatina project has been envisioned. Conversations centered on redeveloping the city's site at the southeast corner of Highway 305 and Winslow Way into an affordable housing project. Referencing the city’s proposal, Langendoen proposed the idea of incorporating that effort into Cavatina’s project.
“Our perspective," he said, "is there’s an opportunity to potentially build those units within the project that we’re looking at building if it goes through."
Nathan Pilling is a reporter covering Bainbridge Island, North Kitsap and Washington State Ferries for the Kitsap Sun. He can be reached at 360-792-5242, nathan.pilling@kitsapsun.com or on Twitter at @KSNatePilling.
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This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Group eyes ambitious redevelopment near Bainbridge ferry terminal
