Kennewick Real Estate Blog

Kennewick School District is inviting any interested community members to join their first KSD Bus Tour, which is scheduled for October 29:

The first KSD Bus Tour visits Kennewick High School and Westgate Elementary on Thursday, October 29. This is a great opportunity to see education as it happens in our classrooms. The tour is free and includes transportation to the schools, a light breakfast, and lunch. Register by calling 222-5001 by October 27. Anyone interested in learning more about the district and our schools is welcome to attend!

This photo is of a lighthouse on the Desert Course (I think) at Golf Universe mini-golf in Kennewick. It seems to me that this should be the only lighthouse in the city of Kennewick.

But the Port of Kennewick is moving ahead with plans to build a lighthouse at Clover Island. Yep. It’s a $1 million project that involves building a 62-foot tall lighthouse to draw people to Clover Island and create an “icon” for the area. The project also includes a plaza, a gateway arch, and walking paths between the island and downtown Kennewick. And it includes a lighthouse.

A lighthouse!

Lighthouses are pretty cool. They’re unique. They’re kinda fun to look at for a moment or two. And they’re built to mark a hazardous coastline and assist boats and airplanes with navigation. Thanks to modern technology (like GPS and more sophisticated navigational tools), lighthouses are pretty much a thing of the past. They certainly don’t serve much functional value at this point, and that’s all the more true on Clover Island. I read the paper and watch local TV news regularly, and have done so for 15 years, and I can’t recall a single occasion when a boat ran aground on the shoreline at Clover Island. Did I somehow miss the news that this has become a dangerous stretch of water/land?

Look, I’m as much a fan of the Clover Island area as anyone. Cedars and Ice Harbor Brewery are two of our favorite restaurants. Continuing to develop the area and make it attractive to visitors and businesses is terrific. But, in light of the current budget situation and the need to spend money as wisely as possible … is a lighthouse really the best idea?

If you’re interested in what’s going to happen at the west end of Columbia Park, plan on attending on a meeting next week. The consulting firm hired to explore options for that part of the park will present three different plans that were developed after a June meeting and two surveys. You’ll be able to review the three plans and provide input for further development/refinement.

The meeting is set for October 21 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Kiwanis Building, 6007 Columbia Park Trail.