A project to remodel the bathroom and shower facility at the Port of Port Townsend’s Boat Haven has been scaled down significantly.

In the summer of 2017, Port of Port Townsend commissioners had been planning a much larger remodeling project for the bathroom, including installation of a more powerful ventilation system.

The cost estimate for that larger remodeling project would have been more than $114,000 and possibly be as much as $200,000, according to port documents. That project would have included reconfiguration of the floor plan, the addition of one unisex bathroom, partial replacement of fixtures in the wall and ceiling paneling, reconfiguration of lighting and replacement of the HVAC system. In October 2017, that larger project was put on hold indefinitely as port staff decided to address higher-priority financial needs, according to the port’s website.

Last year, port staff had said that the current ventilation system was too small to handle the number of showers people take every year in the building, which caused problems with mold. The building was built in the mid-1980s, and the port estimates 53,000 showers are taken at the facility every year.

“It is a high-volume facility,” said Sam Gibboney, executive director of the port.

The current proposal, however, is estimated to cost just $8,000 for painting work and $10,000 for a lock system. The project could get underway this summer, according to a 2018 capital improvement plan.

Gibboney said the locks would “provide a level of comfort for people that are in the bathroom [so] that just not the whole world can walk in. And, we hear that particularly from our female patrons – that they’re uncomfortable with not being able to shower in a locked facility.”

The locks could be in the form of a keypad lock or a card-pass system.

Although the locks could improve the experience for Boat Haven customers, the locks could cause problems for homeless and off-the-grid people who also use the facility.

Commissioner Steve Tucker said last year that a “bathroom summit” needed to be held between the port, city and county to resolve the need for a public hygiene facility.

Tucker said that summit had been “put off and put off and put off,” in part because the port had not yet installed locks at the Boat Haven bathroom.

Tucker said the City of Port Townsend was considering the use of the Mountain View Commons pool as a public showering facility, and also the YMCA of Jefferson County, a branch of Olympic Peninsula YMCA, was contemplating a $18 million renovation, which would include the city pool.