PORT ANGELES — Workers finished pouring a concrete pad Tuesday for a waterfront vessel wash-down facility, the cornerstone feature of the Port of Port Angeles’ new 19-acre Marine Trades Industrial Park.

The $2.14 million project’s large wash-down staging area west of downtown puts the port in a singular class among West Coast vessel-service complexes when considering the heavy-capacity private travel-lifts that can serve the Port Angeles waterfront facility, port Director of Engineering Chris Hartman said.

Workers with Tom Wood Concrete of Port Angeles on Tuesday finished 14 days of pouring 800 cubic yards of concrete for the facility’s 255-foot-long pad, Port Public Works and Operations Manager Chris Rasmussen said Tuesday.

It includes an 80-foot approach pad and a 175-foot strip capable of handling nearby Westport LLC’s 164-foot yachts.

The wash-down facility will be ready for use by Dec. 31, initially for Westport and nearby Platypus Marine and hopefully for more marine-trade companies as the wash-down facility is completed, Hartman said.

Hartman said work on the wash-down will be completed by spring 2019, when a wastewater treatment system goes online.

Until then, wastewater will be trucked to the Boat Haven marina a mile west of the Marine Trades Industrial Park.

Yacht-maker Westport LLC, already moving its cabinet-making plant to the former Walmart store east of Port Angeles by Dec. 31, has a 500-ton travel lift for its maximum 50-meter yachts that can soon be scrubbed at the wash-down site.

Platypus Marine, which repairs and builds yachts, military vessels and commercial fishing vessels, has a 300-ton lift.

And the port, which owns a 70-ton lift it keeps at its Port Angeles Boat Haven, operates a travel-lift pier near the industrial park.

“This is the first major piece of infrastructure on that former plywood mill site that will kick start the port’s marketing of the Marine Trades Industrial Park,” Hartman said.

“We can show we are serious about developing it for marine trades.

“We couldn’t have a Marine Trades Industrial Park without having a wash-down facility to attract the larger vessels we have to attract,” he added.

“As far as I am aware, I don’t think there is any other shipyard in Puget Sound that has the size of travel-lift capability and wash-down that we have here in Port Angeles.

“More and more, [companies] are wanting to haul out larger vessels instead of drydock them,” Hartman said.

“That’s kind of the market we are going after.”

Platypus Marine owner Judson Linnabary said he’s happy it’s being built.

“It will be more convenient for us,” he said.

He said industrial park tenants would be able to hire Platypus Marine to haul their vessels to the wash-down area, although there is not a lot of money in it.

“We’ll do it as a service to other people,” Linnebary said.

Westport General Manager Dave Hagiwara did not return calls for comment on the impact the wash-down project will have on the yacht maker.

The project was budgeted for $1.8 million for 2018 and includes $200,000 for the wastewater treatment system.

It includes eight budget amendments for Reid Middleton Inc., an Everett engineering, planning and surveying company.

Port commissioners Nov. 14 approved the last amendment of $15,040 for construction administration closeout, increasing the agreement with the company to $365,000.

The amendments included $125,000 for wash-down facility design, $2,426 for redesign of the wash pad, and $13,660 for wash-down value engineering.

The amendments consist of additional work that was required for the project, Hartman said.

A delayed construction date increased construction administration costs, Reid Middleton Senior Engineer Ding Ye said in a Nov. 6 letter to Rasmussen justifying the amendment.

Reid Middleton had estimated the project would cost what Hartman called in January a “staggering” $2.46 million before commissioners delayed installation of the wastewater treatment system. They also cut the wash-pad length nearly in half before returning it to the 75 feet that was completed Tuesday.

The wash-down facility is on property that saw harder times when Peninsula Plywood LLC shut its doors in November 2011, putting seven employees out of work at a plant that had employed 159 workers.

Cleanup of the site cost about $12 million and was covered by Exxon and Rayonier Inc. and the port’s insurance.

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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.