Progress slow, steady for 'Lava Lite'

Selected site will support Soap Lake's sign structure

SOAP LAKE — Mayor Wayne Hovde and coordinator Al Lundberg are well aware:

The community is anxious to see something happening with the lava lamp sign structure gifted to the city by Target Corporation, which arrived in town in 2005 and remains in storage at a Port of Ephrata warehouse.

"They are anxious, we are anxious," Hovde said. "We're a little bit overanxious. We want it there. We need to see something coming out of the ground."

It appears everyone's anxieties will soon be eased.

Hovde explained that the project is being referred to as the "Lava Lite," as the term "lava lamp" is a registered trademark.

"It's to bring some differentiation between the lamp you put on your table and this very large tourist icon," explained Lundberg, who became the city's lava lamp coordinator in 2005.

Tests on the proposed site for the sign structure, atop a hill on Canna Street, have found the land to be perfect for the sign and its support structure, Lundberg said.

The structure will be part of the first phase of a planned new community park along Canna Street, and will sit on city-owned property at the site.

Opinions from experts looking over the site show a layer of solid basalt about 6 to 8 feet down, which will have no problem supporting the structure, Lundberg said, adding he is in the process of gathering the final engineering information to finalize the permitting process and begin construction.

"We're still looking at summer," he said, noting the sign structure is being remodeled and cleaned.

Hovde said a groundbreaking ceremony is projected for the third week of May. Construction of the lamp may still be finalized this summer, he added, dependent upon the completion of materials for an additional fourth side for the lamp. The structure, initially designed to adorn the side of a building in New York City's Time Square, is only three sides of a lamp, Hovde and Lundberg explained.

The city is using $100,000 from its tourism funds — Hovde stressed that this is not from the city's general funds — and any of those future funds raised from tourism will be replaced. The sign structure project is also receiving funding from a Strategic Infrastructure Project, or SIP, grant from the county, and donations, some of which Lundberg is still in the process of negotiating.

"It's different selling a concept," Lundberg said of present negotiations, having reached the point where there's "dirt, plans, models (and) ideas" to show prospective contributors. "We see this as being very feasible on the economic side." The project includes landscaping of the site, restoration of the lamp and development of the support structure.

Lundberg called the development of the sign structure and a health and wellness spa downtown part of Soap Lake's core revitalization, capitalizing on Soap Lake's past as a tourist town, and noted the businesses will prosper. An event like the Hog Run brings in many vendors, he said, but local businesses will benefit when tourists pop in from places like the Gorge Amphitheatre or Grand Coulee Dam to see the structure.

"There will be a whole new face on Soap Lake within a year," Lundberg said, adding that the new face will extend to Soap Lake's downtown as well, thanks to the efforts of groups like the Soap Lake Revitalization Team and the Soap Lake Improvement Crew.