Growing waterfront community keeps small-town charm

Anacortes embraces growth, treasures history

by Rachel Robertson

Dakota Creek Industries, part of the growing marine industry, is one of the major employers in Anacortes. The shipbuilding and repair facility works on large boats such as tugs, ferries, and fishing vessels.

What is unique about Anacortes? “I could walk out right now to the corner in front of the post office just down the street, and I’ll bet you that every other person out there would say, ‘Hi Dean, how are you?’ ‘How are you, Mr. Mayor?’” said Anacortes Mayor Dean Maxwell. “It’s a warm, friendly, place, where people still know each other and still run into each other on a daily basis. Most of our business activity takes place in these six blocks,” he said of the downtown area, which houses the Municipal Building as well as a thriving business district that includes restaurants, art galleries, antique stores, specialty shops, bookstores and more.

A picture of Anacortes
Anacortes’s character took some cultivation by city officials and dedicated residents of the historic port town, 80 miles north of Seattle on the drivable Fidalgo Island.
“If you had been here in the mid-80s you probably could have shot a cannon down the middle of the street and you wouldn’t have hit anybody,” joked Mitch Everton, executive director of the Anacortes Chamber of Commerce. “And in 20 years it’s become vibrant; our vacancy rate here in our commercial area is probably in the 5 percent range,” he continued. Indeed, the population has grown from 9,010 in 1980 to about 16,100 today.
A visible expression of Anacortes’s small town charm are the 100-plus murals that local artist Bill Mitchell has created for the Anacortes Mural Project. Many of the murals depict prominent Anacortes characters in fitting locations, such as a portrait of the first Mayor on the Municipal Building.
“Bill is just a local treasure ... he grew up here, he knows the history ... his focus is combining a wonderful artistic, aesthetic sense with the history of Anacortes,” said Everton.
Perhaps less obvious, but equally important, are wide sidewalks and streets, making it a walkable downtown – a rarity in the age of big box stores and strip malls. Another rarity, but common for Anacortes, are drivers who stop for pedestrians at crosswalks. “It’s a slower pace of life,” Everton commented.
Adding to the feel of an old-time town are the beautifully restored historic buildings such as the stately McNaught Building featuring a cupola that offers aerial views of the downtown and the port. Now an elegant hotel, restaurant and spa, it (like Anacortes) has a history of upheaval and resurrection. In 1907, 17 years after it was built, the building was dragged atop logs and pulled by horses several blocks to its current location. More recently, a fire damaged the building, requiring renovations that took two years to complete. In 2005 it opened as the Majestic Inn and Spa.
The natural beauty of the area that was once fouled by industry is something that Mayor Maxwell is keen to protect. Where mills and canneries once took up the shoreline there are now parks and a huge public marina. An obvious source of pride for the Mayor is the Tommy Thompson Parkway – a five mile trail along the shoreline and across the Fidalgo Bay (supported by a trestle) – that was planned and built during his administration. “We’re trying to reconnect with the water,” said Maxwell. The effort continues with plans to build another walkway along the Guemes Channel for which the city was just awarded a $250,000 Pedestrian Safety grant from Washington State Department of Transportation.
Anacortes is also preserving its forests though the Conservation Easement Program in which one acre of forestland is protected from logging, mining and development for every $1,000 donated. With an ultimate goal of 1,500 acres, the program is 10 years ahead of schedule with more than $1.3 million already in an endowment fund – the interest of which is used to maintain the forest. “We are leaving a legacy for our great-great-great-grandchildren that they will always have this forestland to be able to walk in and to recreate in,” said Maxwell, recalling how he enjoyed the beautiful forest and freshwater lakes as a youth.
The picture of Anacortes is not complete without mentioning the boats. It is what many visitors and residents alike come for. Not only are there ferries that take visitors to the San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island, but there are yachts, sailboats and kayaks, for purchase or rent; as well as fishing charters and whale watching tours. The picturesque Cap Sante Marina Boat Haven is the site of several hundred moored boats right in downtown Anacortes.
“It’s a true public marina so people can stroll down there anytime,” said Bob Hyde, executive director of the Port of Anacortes, explaining that many marinas these days are now locked. “We pride ourselves in having that capability,” he said.
Just completed in March, the new boat launch was a $1.3 million project that the City Planning Commission urged the Port to build after the old one was removed from the Cap Sante Boat Haven. The launch allows people with trailer boats to easily access the water – an important feature for the community, many of whom own trailer boats.
All this – the charming and historic downtown, the natural beauty, the marine activities – many of the visitors to Anacortes miss as they make a beeline to the ferries. It has been the challenge for the Chamber and Commerce and the City to tempt the 1.5 million cars that drive through Anacortes every year to stop and stay a while.

Industries: A mix of new and old
A past and continuing focus for encouraging tourism has been revitalizing the downtown business area.
Has it worked?
“Anacortes has become the place – if you want to go out to dinner, catch a movie, have a nice time, maybe go have a beer with your friends, you come to Anacortes,” said Mayor Maxwell. “In the last 10 years we’ve probably added seven or eight different restaurants in the downtown business community that are very viable,” he continued.
Regular downtown events such as the Art Galley Walk (every first Friday of the month) and Taste Anacortes (every third Wednesday); as well as annual festivals such as the Waterfront Festival (May), the Anacortes Art Festival, and the Jazz Festival (both in August); and other big events such as the huge downtown flea market in July called Shipwreck Days, have helped to encourage the city’s number-two economy – tourism.
The Anacortes Chamber of Commerce is the main vehicle for promotion of tourism. “From a tactical standpoint, our Web site (www.anacortes.org) is our single greatest marketing tool,” said Everton. “In January we had 30,000 plus visits, probably in the summer we’ll have upwards of 50,000.” For people interested in locating a business in Anacortes, their Web site will soon include videos of business development testimonials.
Although the plywood, shingle and pulp mills are now all gone, many of the traditional industries still have a presence in Anacortes. The two refineries, Shell Puget Sound Refinery and Tesoro Refining & Marketing Co., are the city’s two biggest employers. “Anacortes was dieing in the 50s and it was a big thing for Anacortes to get these two refineries, and they continue to be a strong supporter of the community,” said Mayor Maxwell whose father relocated his family to Anacortes to work for Texaco.
Marine industries have been around for a while, but are now experiencing a surge in growth. Cap Sante Marine (boat repair and supplies), Northern Marine (custom yacht builder), and Transpac Marinas (float design and manufacture), are a few examples of the burgeoning industry that now employs about 1,400. Dakota Creek Industries, a shipbuilding and repair facility, is the largest marine industry employer with about 250 employees currently. The Leschi, a 108’ fireboat, was recently completed for the Seattle Fire Department; that project alone employed about 50 people for a little over a year.
The marine terminal, the Port’s oldest facility, was involved in the past with fishing and then logging. Now, Hyde says they are a boutique port, because they are limited by the amount of storage space available. “Whatever we can get, we haul,” said Hyde, listing such items as rock, molten sulfur and coke (a byproduct of the local refineries that aluminum smelters purchase because it burns at high temperatures).
Codfish-processing plants and salmon canneries had a presence in Anacortes as early as the 1890s, and although those no longer exist, Trident Seafoods Corp., which harvests and processes seafood from the Pacific Northwest, is one of the major employers with 180 full-time staff.

Changes afoot... for the City
Sometimes there is a downside to creating an attractive, pleasant location where people want to live.
“It is getting increasingly expensive to live in Anacortes,” Everton said. “And what we are seeing very quickly are the demographics changing from a working class – traditionally blue collar – type of town, to one that is considerably more affluent.” It is a trend that Everton sees as creating challenges for merchants as they lose a local work force.
As the president of the school board, Everton has witnessed a decline in school enrollment from 3,100 five years ago to about 2,700 today, attributing the loss to an influx of an older population without children, as younger families can no longer afford the high cost of living in Anacortes.
It’s a tough problem to combat when housing costs are market driven, but the City is working on plans for more affordable housing. One such effort was the renovation of the New Wilson Hotel, originally built in 1890, which added 25 low-income apartments to the downtown area as well as retail on the first floor.
“There is lot of excitement surrounding that change in the comprehensive plan that allows mixed use retail in the downtown corridor,” said Mayor Maxwell explaining that every person who lives in the downtown business district adds $14,000 to $15,000 to the local economy.
Beyond just finances, though, Maxwell sees other benefits. “We’re definitely going to have to change the way we live. I think that is pretty apparent. We probably all tromp a little bit too heavily: using natural resources, and having to use the automobile everywhere we go. A more walkable community is going to answer some of those questions for all of us,” he said.
Bringing discount retail to Anacortes will also help the city become more self-contained, when a drive to Burlington or Lynnwood to buy such items as work boots or jeans is no longer necessary. To that end, Sears has plans to reopen a catalog store after leaving 25 years ago; and the City is working on acquiring a six-acre parcel of property that would allow for 9,000 square feet of retail contiguous with the commercial business district.
Another big concern for Anacortes, especially with the Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., looming in the next three years, is the possible loss of the ferry run to Sidney, B.C. As a result of a request by the town of Sidney, operation of the ferry terminal will switch over from Washington State Ferries to B.C. Ferries, which consequently puts the ferry run from Anacortes to Sidney in jeopardy.
Everton said that the Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor have been working hard over the last two months to convince Washington State Ferries to keep the run. “It will definitely exist in 2007 – the commitment is to continue the run through the end of this year – and our effort now is to try to reach working solutions between Washington State Ferries and B.C. Ferries to ensure that it continues to run,” Everton said.

... for the Port
New executive director of the Port of Anacortes, Bob Hyde, (in office six months) hopes to make some positive changes for Anacortes: “Historically the Port has not got along with the City or the Chamber of Commerce very well. My challenge – and one of the reasons that I took the job – was to try to turn that around, to work collectively and collaboratively with the City and the Chamber. And we’ve been able to do that so far, and that’s a lot of fun,” he said.
Hyde was in a good position to change that working relationship, having previously worked for the city as the director of public works and city engineer, and thus having knowledge of the City procedures as well as familiarity with City personnel.
As the process of replanning the marina and the land around the marina gets under way, Hyde anticipates projects that will bring people closer to the marina. “Marinas in Western Washington are really undergoing a transformation because everybody wants to live on them ... it used to be crummy old boat yards and junk ... now it’s condos and office space,” he said.
The market is driving other changes at the marina as well. “The San Juans are probably the best cruising area in the entire nation ... so the yacht chartering business is huge,” Hyde said, explaining that the marina has been converting to larger slips, accommodating boats 50 feet and greater. However, many in the community want the marina to continue serving smaller boats. “So, that’s an issue the Port has to deal with – we’re maybe not serving the community anymore, we’re serving the high-end customers that are from Seattle or Redmond, or the charter folks,” said Hyde
With the community in close quarters with all the Port facilities (marine terminals, marina and airport), Hyde knows the importance of community input for any new plans or projects. “We are surrounded by the community, so we have to be sensitive to that,” he said.

What’s next?
“We currently don’t have enough beds for the people that want to be here in the summertime.” said Mayor Maxwell. “And there are other industries that can follow suit on having the hotel industry here.” A convention center is one idea that the City of Anacortes has been kicking around.
Interest in a marine skills trade center that would be a collaboration of the Port of Anacortes, the school district, and Skagit Valley College, is also surfacing. “Right now if you are an industry that uses aluminum welders, for example, it’s extremely hard to find someone with those skills. So, the intent would be to put some type of skill center in that would address some of that shortage,” said Everton.
The Port, in a joint venture with Dakota Creek Industries, will start work on a $30 million project this year to dredge out a new slip for the floating dry dock (a dock that sinks down in the water and then lifts up large boats so they can be repaired) that will be closer to the shipyard.
Hyde is looking for more businesses to lease space at the Port facilities, particularly ones that are marine or aviation related. “Like anyone else, Anacortes is looking for living wage jobs, so anyone that brings some potential jobs to the table, we are excited about that,” he said.

Ninety-five hanging flower baskets color the downtown business district through summer and early fall, a collaboration of the Anacortes Chamber of Commerce and the City of Anacortes.
Photo courtesy Steve Berentson.




The Majestic Inn & Spa opened in 2005 filling an important need in the tourism industry. The elegant hotel, restaurant and spa is housed in a historic building in downtown Anacortes.



Boats, boats and more boats are on view at the Cap Sante Boat Harbor, a public marina; and parks such as the Seafarers’ Memorial Park (pictured in the foreground) have replaced old industrial land.