Interested parties tour Soap Lake lava lamp pieces

Lundberg named interim coordinator for Soap Lake citizen group

EPHRATA — Many curious people got to lay eyes on the lava lamp sign gifted to Soap Lake by Target Corporation for the first time over the weekend.

From 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, the pieces of the sign structure were on display in their disassembled form in the Port of Ephrata warehouse where they've been sitting since February.

About 30 people came to see the pieces during the two-hour open house, hosted by idea originator Brent Blake, president and CEO of the Giant Lava Lamp Project, Inc., and Al Lundberg, the newly named interim coordinator for the project, currently estimated to cost $100,000.

Lundberg explained that the City of Soap Lake gave the go-ahead last week to a lava lamp citizens' advisory group that had volunteered to move ahead with the project. Originally, they were asked to put together a position description to find someone to spearhead the movement until the lava lamp was erected, including community relations — informing the community and getting input on everything from location of the sign, fund-raising and the eventual dedication ceremony to overseeing the development of bidding on electrical work and the like and site evaluations.

"We're not going to really get someone from the outside to come in for a year at no cost," Lundberg said. When the city gave its approval, Lundberg was named interim coordinator, which he says with a chuckle, is his title until someone better comes along who is even more eager.

"Al's got a great background, so it's like trying to find an Al out of the area, we've got him here," Blake said. Lundberg has done construction work and worked with funding efforts. "To have a citizen's group to work with, so I don't feel alone on the project, is wonderful and Al Lundberg is an excellent person to be helping us with that effort, so I'm just thrilled and we really have a major commitment to get this thing up by next summer. We just got to make it happen."

Lundberg said he and his wife are deeply involved in the Art Guild of Soap Lake and development of tourism, and thought that the town needs a focal point, which the lava lamp could provide.

"It's fired people's imagination," Lundberg said. "The whole world's interested."

Saturday afternoon's open house was given because many people had not seen the sign structure pieces yet.

"There's been comments that it's cardboard, that it doesn't exist," Lundberg said. "No, it's here. Basically, our goal is to take it from horizontal to vertical."

Blake said that the project is working to get the sign structure's original three engineers out to look over the sign with consulting Moses Lake engineer Dennis Parr.

"They are three key people who designed it and built it originally for Target, and they're willing to come out here at incredibly reasonable fees and so on," he said.

The engineers' assessment, including Parr's, will be helpful, Blake said, and they will continue to work as consultants on the project to erect the sign in Soap Lake. He said that the hope was to bring them to look at the sign Aug. 26 through 29.

Suezy and George Gosvener were on hand for the open house because of an error in thinking. They were in Soap Lake from Wenatchee for a bike rally that was on a different date, but heard about the lava lamp and wanted to see it for themselves.

"I am pretty overwhelmed, I just didn't think of anything to this magnitude," Suezy said. She had been expecting something intact rather than in pieces, but said it left more to the imagination. "I really have an appreciation for what kind of work is going to go into making this a reality."

Soap Lake resident Oliver Jergensen said he was curious to see what the pieces looked like, and said he was impressed that the parts were as massive and as sturdy as they are.

"I think it's a great venture, a fun thing to do," Jergensen said. "I kind of think they can erect it a lot cheaper than the $100,000 they're talking about it. It seems to me that there would be a lot of people that would donate cranes or something like this or manpower, if there's somebody that knew what they're doing, if they have the diagrams and so forth, and just for the publicity. I think I'd go that avenue."

Freida Sebok is a lifelong Soap Lake resident, and she thinks something needs to make the city more stable.

"The lava lamp is a weird idea, but if they'll build it, they'll build it, that's great," she said, echoing Gosvener's assertion that assemblage of the sign looks like a big job. Sebok said she was on hand to watch the idea for the lava lamp at its original stage. "It's very strange —everybody laughed at them. But I hope we get to see it come, because it will be a real asset to the whole area."