SHINE – High rent could sink plans to relocate the Olympic Peninsula Gateway Visitors Center to the intersection of Teal Lake Road and state Highway 104, Jefferson County officials said.
The move has been in the works for more than a year.
The owner of the Teal Lake Road site, Dean Reynolds, proposed a monthly lease payment of $3,950 to rent the Lindal Cedar home on the property about three miles west of the Hood Canal Bridge, said Jefferson County Administrator John Fischbach.
“It seems extraordinarily high,” said Fischbach.
Reynolds was unavailable for comment Wednesday.
Utilities, which also would be paid by the county, would be about $1,000 per month, Fischbach estimated.
Although Fischbach is still negotiating with Reynolds, he also said on Wednesday, “We’re dusting off the old plans.”
The old plans would upgrade the current visitors center at the intersection of state highways 19 and 104, about six miles west of the Hood Canal Bridge, instead of relocating it.
That facility, which is a log cabin-style manufactured home, has no restrooms.
Instead, it offers two portable toilets in the parking lot.
Fischbach said a water well has already been dug on county-owned land across state Highway 19 to pipe water into the center for a rest room.
