The Dungeness River Audubon Center at Railroad Bridge Park is set for an expansion project.
Leaders of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Dungeness River Audubon Center and the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society met on Jan. 5 to sign a commitment to add 5,000 square feet of education, office and meeting space to the center.
The existing 1,600-square-foot building hosts exhibits and classroom and lab space and a staff office at 2151 W. Hendrickson Road.
A new east entrance and more parking is planned on 4.5 acres of land the tribe recently purchased to accommodate the expansion, said Annette Hanson, River Center board member and capital campaign committee chairman.
No plans or costs have been set, Hanson said, because they are in the pre-planning and conceptual phase of the project.
Powell Jones, River Center executive director, said an expanded facility would help staff, board members and volunteers do their mission more at full capacity.
“Our building is fantastic and it’s served us well for 15 years,” he said.
“But if I have a meeting in here, I can’t have a field trip in here or out-of-town visitors come in and see a display.”
Hanson said the plan initially, before the River Center was constructed in 2001, was to have a bigger building but costs led community partners to seek a more modest start while developing programs.
“The vision is bigger than what they built originally,” Jones said.
The idea of a River Center began in 1984 with the formation of Sequim Natural History Museum in the former Sequim High School building, she said.
Volunteers reorganized the museum as a nonprofit under the name the Rainshadow Natural Science Foundation and partnered with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe to begin developing the River Center in 1992.
“(The expansion) is going to be a huge asset for our community,” Hanson said.
“We won’t be able to turn people away with the programs we offer. In the future that won’t have to happen with separate rooms for interpretive space and the meeting room.”
Jones said a new facility will help them expand their environmental education, too.
“We want to do something world class,” he said.
New access
The first component to the expansion will be the new road to the River Center, Hanson said.
The tribe’s new property connects to an existing lot that volunteers use for overflow parking off Hendrickson Road for special events.
Both Hanson and Jones said the road is part of the community partner’s long-range plans to have a second access point because high water sometimes floods the main road into Railroad Bridge Park.
“It ensures us access into the park,” Jones said.
Hanson said the tribe plans to pay for the road project and it’s “a huge service they are providing to the community.”
Annette Nesse, chief operating officer for the tribe, said they are engaged in the project’s conceptual design process now, which will “have a more noticeable access point to the facility”.
“In future years, it’ll allow us to decomission the existing parking lot, which floods every year and requires a lot of maintenance,” she said. “We’ll use (the new entry) to provide better access.”
Nesse said the new entry and parking could be finished before the expansion project begins to provide better acess for construction crews.
She said that could happen as soon as this summer.
Hanson said more information will be made available as it’s determined on the projects.
With questions on the project, call Powell Jones at the center at 681-4076 or Annette Hanson at 360-670-6774.
Visit Railroad Bridge Park at 2151 W. Hendrickson Road or read more at http://dungenessrivercenter.org/.
Community partners, from left, Clare Hatler, vice president of the Dungeness River Audubon Center board; W. Ron Allen, tribal council chairman/executive director of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe; and Ken Wiersema, president of the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society, sign an agreement on Jan. 5, to expand the Dungeness River Audubon Center. Photo by Sue Chickman
