_{Thumbnail photo: The canoe node will be one of the first interpretive elements to be constructed as part of the Tolowa Cultural Trail feature at Beachfront Park. | Image courtesy of Crescent City}

Crescent City councilors on Monday approved an agreement with the contractor that will lay the groundwork for the Tolowa Cultural Trail at Beachfront Park.

The city’s agreement with Tidewater Contractors to do the excavation, grading and improvements needed to install the first three interpretive elements seems small, especially after the City Council accepted a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation earlier this month.

But Public Works Director Dave Yeager pointed out that it’s taken roughly five years of collaboration, public outreach and pursuing and cobbling together funding from eight different grants to get the city to the “kick off moment” for the project.

“We’re breaking ground as we say with this project,” he told councilors, adding that Crescent City is managing eight grants connected with the Tolowa Cultural Trail. “This is a very small segment, but as the city manager also mentioned, we need to get some of this installed by Nov. 30.”

“Some of this” includes a 16-foot tall redwood tree replica, a burden basket that’s about 15 feet in length and 12 feet tall, and a canoe. These public art elements are paid for through a $300,000 California Arts in the Park grant and a $200,000 Coastal Voices Project grant and must be completed this autumn, City Manager Eric Wier said.

Tidewater Contractors will also prepare the entryway to the cultural trail. This feature will include a lithomosaic basket pattern as well as a pebble design created by T.B. Pennick & Sons that will serve as a comparison of the Tolowa population pre-contact versus the 1905 census. 

“That idea to be able to have people not only learn about it or read about it, but to have that physical manifestation in front of you will be really powerful,” Wier told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday. “And then we’re also hoping to work with the Cultural Committee on that. They’ll be the ones who’ll help the consultant team place those stones. That’s another element we’re hoping to see come to fruition.”

According to Yeager, Tidewater submitted a proposal to do the excavation and grading and lay down gravel on the trail for a base bid of $213,399. He said the city had hoped to keep the preparation work under $225,000 because of the tight deadline.

Funding for the Tidewater contract comes from a $3 million Clean California Grant the city is also using to construct a welcome gateway to the downtown and park areas as well as to improve access to the Cultural Center, according to Yeager.

Crescent City embarked on the Tolowa Cultural Trails project after receiving about $8 million in Proposition 68 grant dollars in 2021 and 2022, enlisting the help of local tribal representatives as well as members from the Del Norte County Historical Society. 

Other grant-funded amenities at Beachfront Park include a bike pump track, an expanded KidTown playground, a waterfront plaza and an amphitheater. The general contractor for the overall project is Portland landscape architect firm GreenWorks P.C. and its subcontractor Sheridan, Oregon-based SeaReach Ltd., which is designing the trail’s interpretive nodes.

Other grants connected with the Cultural Trails project include a $2 million Mellon Foundation award the City Council accepted June 30, which will allow it to stretch from the Cultural Center to Battery Point and include a total of seven public arts features complete with audio boxes and QR codes enabling visitors to hear Tolowa stories told from elders and tribal members.

Crescent City was also awarded a $3.3 million Community Development Block Grant to make storm drain improvements and complete the reconstruction of Front Street, Yeager said. 

According to Wier, bids for the Clean California and CDBG projects are due back to the city on Aug. 11. Councilors are expected to discuss the Front Street project at its second meeting in August, the city manager said.

Public works staff hope to get the overall Beachfront Park project out to bid in February, which will allow the city to receive up to 80 percent of its Proposition 68 grant dollars early.

“On the cash flow side of this and who’s paying for what does get really complicated because of all the slices [of funding],” he said. “Prop 68 does pay for the canoe piece of it. That was outside the scope of Clean California. The Mellon piece [pays] for a portion of the structures themselves, but then so does the California Art in the Park grant.”

The Mellon Foundation is contributing about $100,000 to the interpretive nodes and about $150,000 to the lithomosaic patterns, Wier said.

“All of the grants are starting to come together and the timing is making it a challenge to get the grant projects and funding sources to all line up,” Wier told Redwood Voice. “We’ve issued separate contracts for the fabrication of the nodes. They’ve been building those nodes for several months and our bigger project that would include [that] work was delayed because of federal requirements, but it was only delayed by about a month.”

On Monday, Yeager walked the City Council through the first stretch of the Tolowa Cultural Trails feature. Tidewater will grade and gravel it from its entry point to the redwood node. Concrete slabs will be poured at the redwood node and at the canoe node further down the trail past Fred Endert Municipal Pool. The burden basket will include a small garden with native and medicinal plants. All of the nodes will include a stool or a bench.

Yeager noted that the canoe is detached from the trail because of its proximity to the amphitheater, which will be under construction next summer. 

“That particular path will be left gravel until it’s completed next summer,” he said. “The remaining section of this trail that isn’t funded in this project will just be ready for concrete. The gravel will be there and it will be graded, so the hope is that the contractor we get on the larger bid, it will be to their benefit as well as ours to complete the section of the trail this year, so we’re not going to have these concrete chunks.”

Bids for the larger Clean California project are expected to come back to the city on Aug. 11. Staff hope that the bulk of the concrete surfacing will be finished before the trail opens in November.