New seafood restaurant set to rise on Washougal waterfront
It's out with the old, in with the new in Washougal.
The demolition last month of Parker House Restaurant by Vancouver-based RSV Building Solutions cleared the way for the construction of the latest entry to Southwest Washington's casual and fine-dining scene.
Called "Black Pearl on the Columbia," the planned three-story restaurant will incorporate riverfront views, an outdoor patio and a seafood-heavy menu filled with local offerings, according to owner/operator Russell Brent.
Spectators watch the demolition of the Parker House Restaurant in Washougal by Vancouver-based RSV Building Solutions on July 13. A veteran restaurant consultant plans to build a new casual and fine-dining establishment.
A veteran consultant with a resume filled with local dining mainstays, Brent looked to achieve similar success at a Washougal waterfront property still clouded by a troubled recent past.
In early 2009, what was then Parker House went into foreclosure after struggling for years under the ownership of horseracing jockey Victor Espinoza – whose tenure was mostly marked by mixed reviews from local diners and a riverfront location starting to show signs of decay.
Upon seeing the foreclosure listing in April 2009, Coldwell Banker Commercial broker Jim West called Brent regarding a possible deal for Parker House. "I immediately saw an opportunity and leaped on it," said Brent, who closed on the troubled property on S. First Street for $1.7 million last December.
The Parker House will be replaced by a 10,000-square-foot, three-level seafood restaurant featuring an outdoor dining patio with views of the Columbia River, downtown Portland and on a clear day, Mount Hood.
Teaming up once again with RSV, the lead contractor at both Beaches projects, Brent eventually made the decision to demolish the 14,300-square-foot Parker House structure and to build his new dining establishment from scratch.
According to Brent, one chief motivating factor behind the demolition of Parker House lay in its proximity to the Columbia River. "Since the building was located so close to the rocks reinforcing the riverbank, we knew it would be very difficult to establish an outdoor dining space," Brent said. "And that was exactly what we wanted."
Together with Jeffrey Lightheart, a principal at Architects Associative in Hazel Dell, Brent developed plans which placed the new restaurant's footprint 20 feet away from the riverbank, allowing for a landscaped patio offering unobstructed views of the Columbia River, the lights of downtown Portland and on a clear day, Mt. Hood.
For Lightheart, a self-described "Washougal boy," his work on a project replacing a longtime local landmark held special meaning. "When I was growing up here, Parker House was the place to go," he said. "My goal was not to recreate that atmosphere, but build on it."
For the Black Pearl, Lightheart said he tried to create a casual feel for the first level, with the restaurant's bar incorporated into the dining area, creating an ambience he said would be similar to Beaches in Vancouver. Fine dining space occupies the second level, with private dining and office space rounding out the third floor.
According to Brent, one of the biggest challenges was scaling back the restaurant to a proposed 10,000 square feet. "Until you put a figure on it, you can dream as big as you want," Brent said. "But once you put a budget together, you wonder, ‘Do I need all that?'"
Lightheart agreed.
"The challenge was to get something that worked in a reasonable amount of square footage," he said. "It took a couple of runs to arrive at a floor plan and amount of seating that made sense."
Brent said the planned restaurant would seat as many as 260 people, serving up a seasonal menu including spring Chinook, summer sockeye salmon and crab.
According to Rachel Mari Settecase, principal designer and founder of Mari Studio in Portland, the restaurant will have a "classic, casual and American" feel with some nautical and Caribbean touches mixed in. Both Settecase and architect Lightheart said they wanted to capitalize on river views, especially from the building's second floor fine-dining area, with floor-to-ceiling windows dominating the south face of the restaurant.
Elsewhere on the building's façade, the plan was to use accents made from local materials, including redwood, naval brass and Camas stone.
Though the city of Washougal has not yet signed off on the plans, Brent said he's confident that structural work will be wrapped up by October, with an opening date sometime in the first quarter of 2011. Brent declined to cite the total cost of the project.
Speaking with the VBJ last week, Brent cast the Black Pearl project in different terms than his previous efforts, in which he developed restaurant properties on behalf of clients like Vancouver-based The Holland, Inc.
"When it's someone else's money, decisions come a lot easier," he said. "But when it's your own money, things get a little bit more complicated. It's easy to second-guess yourself."
