The Port of Vancouver announced Monday that it will partner with the Vancouver Rotary Foundation to create a walkway between the Waterfront Renaissance Trail and the Vancouver Landing at Terminal 1.
The walkway will be called Rotary Way and commemorate the Rotary’s 100th anniversary, which will take place next year. The Vancouver Rotary Foundation will contribute $500,000 toward the project, the largest gift awarded in the foundation’s history.
The partnership is scheduled to be formalized at a Port of Vancouver commission meeting Tuesday, according to a press release from the port.
“We are really excited to partner with the port on this historic project,” Vancouver Rotary Foundation President Bruce Paris said in a statement. “The site of the Vancouver Landing is very special to the Rotary. It was the original meeting site of the Rotary, and we think this is a fitting way to honor the service of the many members of the Rotary over the past 100 years.”
The Terminal 1 project is a large-scale development at the 10-acre site of the port’s original terminal, located directly west of the north end of the Interstate 5 Bridge and extending to the edge of the Waterfront Vancouver district.
The port-owned area is mostly undeveloped apart from some surface parking lots and the former Red Lion Hotel at the Quay building, which sits on the eastern portion of the Terminal 1 pier and is currently home to the WareHouse ’23 restaurant and event space.
The Terminal 1 project calls for the building and the eastern portion of the pier to be torn down and replaced with a new pier and a public market building akin to Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
The Rotary Way walkway will be built on the western half of the pier, which is slated to be renovated rather than replaced. The western half is called Vancouver Landing and is now home to a public amphitheater and a ramp connected to a floating dock. The renovation project will add new landscaping and walkways including Rotary Way.
Rotary Way will run diagonally across the Vancouver Landing site, connecting the Waterfront Renaissance trail to a boardwalk along the south side of the Terminal 1 pier. The walkway will include a commemorative market, landscaping and interpretive displays that will honor the history of the Rotary and Clark County, according to the press release.
“The Vancouver Landing Project at Terminal 1 will be a unique community gathering place,” port CEO Julianna Marler said in a statement, “and we are grateful for our partnership with the Vancouver Rotary Foundation whose support is vital to the success of this project.”
The Columbia River Renaissance Trail runs east for five miles from the Interstate 5 Bridge. The Waterfront Vancouver development added an extension to the west, and the Terminal 1 project is intended to connect the two segments, with Rotary Way forming part of that connection.
Four additional buildings are planned for the other blocks of the Terminal 1 site, one of which is already under construction: an AC Hotel by Marriott, built by Vancouver-based Vesta Hospitality. Planned uses for the other three blocks include retail, residential and office space.
