PORT ANGELES — Construction of the city’s new beaches is complete.

But residents won’t be able to gaze at Port Angeles Harbor from them until spring.

The areas, called pocket beaches, are the first step in creating a new city park between the Valley Creek estuary to the west and the waterfront esplanade.

“The beaches will be open after the park-related elements are in,” said Nathan West, the city’s community and economic development director, on Friday.

Bruch and Bruch Construction Inc. of Port Angeles finished the landscaping for the $1.01 million beach-building project Thursday, West said.

Crews are cleaning up and expect to be off-site by early this week.

The beaches were built within budget and earlier than they were expected to be finished, by the end of this month, West said.

“We’ve been really happy with the quality of work,” he said.

“There is a quality of pride, given that [Bruch and Bruch Construction Inc.] is a local contractor, and they truly care about how the community is benefited by the complete product.”

The beaches are the first of three projects in the $3.62 million second phase — which is the building of a 1.5-acre park — of the city’s $17 million waterfront transportation improvement plan for the waterfront from the Valley Creek estuary to City Pier.

The first phase was the $3.9 million esplanade and streetside improvements along West Railroad Avenue that opened in August of last year.

The third phase is expected to be improvements to the east end of Railroad Avenue near City Pier.

After the park is built and before the beaches are opened to the public, more sand will be placed atop the sand that lies on beach pebbles, which were put into place to help hold the beaches in place during blustery weather.

The beaches were designed after studies of wave and weather patterns to ensure they will weather winter storms, West said.

Larger gray rocks cupping the beaches help contain the sediment, he added.

“One beach is essentially protecting the other,” West said.

White granite blocks will serve as seating above the smallest beach. An existing overlook will stay in place.

Trail construction

The next step is construction of a section of the Waterfront Trail, which will extend from the esplanade east of the park and run along the boundary of private property along Front Street to the Soroptimist plaza.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider awarding a $334,000 contract for trail construction to the low bidder, Primo Construction of Carlsborg, West said.

After the trail is finished, three public plazas will be added to the city-owned land along the water just west of North Oak Street.

A 7-ton sculpture depicting a whale vertebra, which was shifted slightly from its spot near the Valley Creek estuary in April, will be at the center of one of the plazas.

That will wrap up the second phase of the waterfront project.

Although city planning staff members had internally referred to the development as West End Park, it has not been officially named.

City staff has secured between $1.7 million and $1.8 million in federal and state grants for the construction of the park, West said. The city will pay for the remainder.

The thousands of cubic yards of dirt taken from the shoreline in preparation for beach construction is being used in a $21.2 million effort to shift hundreds of thousands of pounds of buried waste in the city’s shuttered landfill back from a failing bluff along the Strait of Juan de Fuca in west Port Angeles.

“With this project, we’ve been able to use the fill from the beaches in the landfill project,” West said.