Fed Up With Towering `Eyesore' -- Unused Crane Has Been Sitting On Waterfront Too Long, Residents Say

EVERETT - Two years ago this month, the Port of Everett moved a 235-foot-tall crane to a site just north of the Everett Marina.

Residents who have looked out at the towering crane every day say that's two years too long.

"We came home from work one day, and there it was," said Kathy Nellis, who owns a home on Grand Avenue, high above the Everett waterfront. From her window, Nellis' view of Hat Island and Puget Sound is marred by the mint-green crane.

Nellis and her neighbors are angry that the port has failed to find a buyer for the now-unused crane, and they say the port has been unresponsive to their concerns about the effect the structure could have on their property values.

"It doesn't block our view - it just trashes it," added Robin Rountree of the Northwest Everett Neighborhood Association. "We don't appreciate them parking their scrap metal out there and leaving it for posterity."

Port officials say allowing the crane to sit while they hold out for a reasonable price is a sound business decision. The Everett Port Commission last month decided to wait up to one more year to find a buyer.

"Several local citizens were concerned about the location of the crane," said Ed Paskovskis, deputy director of the port. "So the commissioners decided not to keep it longer than 12 more months."

Paskovskis says if a buyer can't be found in that time, the commission and the crane's owner, Everett Engineering, have agreed it should be dismantled and sold as scrap.

Nellis says she's not satisfied.

"When we started out it was to be six months, and now we're talking three years. . . . I just think it's a big dragging-the-feet technique," she said.

Paskovskis said the 35-ton crane was used by the port for 26 years to unload alumina, the ore from which aluminum is made. In 1993, the port rebuilt the pier on which the crane was sitting and replaced the crane with a powerful vacuum system.

The port contracted with Everett Engineering to move the crane from the pier at the south end of the waterfront to its current location north of Naval Station Everett and the marina. The port gave the engineering company title to the crane in return for moving it, Paskovskis says.

Dan Martin of Everett Engineering says he's been advertising in marine trade publications and making contact with other ports to try to sell the crane. Martin says he's turned down one offer so far.

Port officials are helping the company look for a buyer for the crane and will receive 25 percent of the proceeds if the crane is sold and 50 percent if it is scrapped. If the crane is sold intact, it is expected to fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. As scrap, it would only be worth tens of thousands.

Residents say they, too, are dealing with economic considerations. Nellis says the city recently reassessed the properties on the bluff where she lives.

"The value of our lot increased by 60 percent," she said. "But if we were to try to sell our house now we wouldn't get that for it" because of the crane.

Neighbors also complain that though the port is a public agency, it has disclosed little information to the public. Nellis says the port promised last fall to apply for a shoreline permit to keep the crane in its new location. The application process will allow public concerns to be heard by the city's Planning Department, but the application process was initiated only recently.

"In our shoreline master plan, this is a port," said Paul Roberts, Everett's planning director. "There's obviously some concern about view blockage, but we have a crane, and the crane is on port property. So those concerns will have to be balanced against that."