Summer Solstice? Fourth of July? Eastsound loves a parade!
But on Thursday, Sept. 1, an exuberant town threw down one that has been four decades in the making – roundly cheering Prune Alley’s total makeover and long-awaited return to normalcy.
The collective sigh of relief was not misplaced. Beginning last March, the final construction phase of the project hunkered down in the heart of Eastsound like an enormous, unwelcome troll that soon acquired a life of its own. Dirty of face, body draped with orange mesh fencing and stretchy yellow tape that flapped in the wind, the beast overwhelmed the tiny community and unceremoniously gobbled up the 2022 season of tourism. Remarkably, though, the troll took a bath and metamorphosized into something spiffy just in time for the ribbon cutting.
Some 200 residents and visitors gathered at the School Road intersection in the waning sunlight of summer’s final blush to mingle with County Councilmembers, Public Works personnel, Prune Alley contractors, a cross-section of Eastsound’s past and present volunteer community leaders and community activist Grace Grantham.
“We decided Prune Alley deserved to be beautiful,” said County Councilmember Cindy Wolf, who inherited the project but takes credit for compressing the construction phase from a proposed three-shoulder-season time scale into a single “rip-off-the-Band-Aid” summer. “It is a street lined with sweet cottages and community gathering spots. And now, you can reach these places on lit sidewalks during winter nights.”
Lead contractor Mike Carlson, himself a graduate of Orcas High School, justifiably boasted that the $6 million project met every milestone, finishing on time despite this year’s notorious labor, supply chain and ferry uncertainties. Carlson’s team imported 1185 tons of asphalt, laid down 900 square yards of brick pavers and finished 3500 linear feet of sidewalk.
“The design is beyond beautiful and will last for years,” he said.
With pride, Wolf honored “a pair of advocates who made a big difference in how we think about access here on Orcas Island: Grace Grantham and Mona Evans.”
Each has made a lasting mark on the design elements of Prune Alley. Evans, an Orcas High School journalist, approached the county to point out that the new Prune Alley accessibility logo and parking signage were about to be “painfully out of date,” relative to the new, energetic logo being phased in at the state level. Wolf held up the new sign for a roundhouse cheer while Mona beamed next to her dad, Chris.
Wolf relayed how Grantham’s advocacy touches lives on Orcas every day, visible in wider store aisles, accessible public restrooms and even the push button door opener at the Orcas Food Co-Op. By 2018, Grantham began fiercely insisting that people understand what it means to build an accessible community. County Engineer Colin Huntemer ultimately had the intersections and crosswalks redesigned.
“I’ve watched from the day they started, and now it’s beautiful,” Grantham told the Sounder. “It’s wonderful. I’m so pleased. I’m really happy.”
And so Eastsound got its parade – really more of a happy stroll down the 260-yard sweep of Prune Alley asphalt already chalk-marked “Shred the Prune” by local skateboarders. The mood was sublime. A tree was planted in Fern Street Park. The construction troll has lost its mojo.
As the sun sank and the crowd dispersed, a lone pickup truck approached the School Road intersection and stopped. The driver seemed confused, stopping again. After six months, no barricades, no orange cones. But then, the new reality dawned. Prune Alley is open! And Eastsound resident, husband and father of three, Daniel Raymer, became the first to drive down Eastsound’s $6 million prize.
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