Lava lamp arrives in Soap Lake next week

Target gift will be stored at Port of Ephrata

SOAP LAKE — The lava lamp sign donated to the city by Target Corporation is expected to arrive in the area next week.

The Soap Lake City Council unanimously agreed at a November meeting to contract with Target to facilitate moving the 50-foot mechanical lamp sign structure, which until recently stood at the corner of a building in Times Square in New York City, to Soap Lake.

The structure will arrive on a total of five semi trucks, said Brent Blake, president and CEO of the Soap Lake Giant Lava Lamp Project, Inc. Three flat bed trucks will arrive either Monday or Tuesday — Blake said the exact date would be cemented when the trucks call 24 hours before their arrival — and two more trucks would follow in a day or two.

The structure was originally estimated to arrive in December, but Blake said it was delayed for a couple of reasons.

"We don't know all of the issues there," he said. "It just got delayed."

Irrigators, Incorporated has donated equipment and a crew to unload the trucks, Blake noted.

The sign will be stored at the Port of Ephrata.

"We were frantically looking around for a place to store this when it got to town," Blake said. The Port of Ephrata had a building for lease available for use.

It's not certain how long the structure will sit in storage, Blake said.

"We need to look at it, figure out whether we need to fix stuff, repair things or replace something," he said. "Then we have to finalize the site where we want to put it, and then we have to raise the money from donations and from interested parties that want to help us get this thing erected. So the sooner, the better, but there's no way of knowing how or where we're going to put it at this point."