Seven Years and Counting

It was the same year that the Astoria City Council made it a goal to buy the Astoria trolley from the San Antonio Museum of Art. It was 2005 when Mayor Van Dusen brought the idea of building some kind of chinese park to the table. At the time the council was stinging from a much criticized city park project at 9th and Astor that consisted of a series of concrete chucks the designer called a "rain fountain. It was supposed to flow whenever it rained but since nobody ever spent much time in rain there it is impossible to report whether or not it actually worked. The city paid $90,000 for the fountain idea. At the goal setting session for fiscal year 2006-07 the Mayor suggested that it would be appropriate to replace the ninth street fiasco, as it was popularly named at the time, with a tribute to the chinese workers who manned the canneries and did all the heavy lifting. 9th and Astor would be the perfect place, according to the Mayor, because it marks the location of the old chinese neighborhood.

Now fast forward to 2011.

The offending fountain is long gone but the chinese park has yet to appear. The Mayor had promised it would not be built with taxpayer money and instead would be built by donations and grants. A new face on the city council, Arlene LaMear has suggested that what has since become the "Garden of Surging Waves" should not be built on the 9th and Astor spot at all. Instead it should go to help the city deal with a much more visible eyesore of it's own making. The Safeway/American legion block. Mayor Van Dusen formed a committee to explore the idea. The committee members were charged with determining whether or not the Chinese inspired garden would fit in with the block somehow. MulvanneyG2 was hired to conceptualize three different designs for the block showing the chinese garden in various spots.

The Garden committee met at city hall Tuesday morning to see the proposed designs and launched into a discussion about the entire block not just whether or not the "Garden of Surging Waves" would fit in.
Planning Commission President Zetty McKay said she was having trouble with the idea that the block seemed to be going to open space when the city has a deficit amount of property for residential development. There was some discussion about whether or not parking should be allowed.

The Sunday Market was discussed with some committee members concerned that there might not be enough space for both trees and booths for the event that runs a total of twenty days out of the year.
In the end the committee voted on their preferences among the three plans with the Mulvannyg2 design team offering their opinions on what they preferred and pushing those concepts a little harder than one might expect. The woman who designed the Garden of Surging Waves insisted that the footprint of the garden should not be any bigger than the one currently designed for the much smaller space at 9th and Astor since she said the artwork had already been purchased.

One advantage to placing the Garden of Surging Waves on the old safeway lot might be the fact that the block was recently included in the Urban Renewal District which may help with funding it's upkeep, keeping in mind that the Mayor promised in 2005 that no taxpayer dollars would be used in the garden construction.

Fundraising for the Garden Of Surging Waves continues with the Port of Portland sponsoring an event in June aimed at Oregon businesses that do business in China.