Site Plan

Marina Center will transform the environmentally degraded Balloon Track and improve Eureka’s environment, community and economy. Here are a few specific ways Marina Center will be good for the city of Eureka, its residents and the entire North Coast region:

• Marina Center will establish an 11-acre coastal wetland preserve at Clark Slough, resulting in a publicly accessible environmental feature covering nearly a third of the total development.
• The environmental preserve will include restoration of a major portion of the historic Clark Slough wetlands. The initiative will add to Eureka’s public access open space and will restore the area to a natural condition it has not known for 100 years or more.
• The development will meet all local, state and federal environmental clean-up standards as it rehabilitates a polluted “brownfield” according to EPA definitions, and do so with private funds -- not taxpayer dollars

• Marina Center will transform the Balloon Track area, a long-abandoned eyesore that has become a magnet for drugs, vagrancy and crime.
• Marina Center will provide an expanded new home for Eureka’s children’s Discovery Museum
• More than $1.8 million will be generated annually by property and sales taxes for Eureka services including public safety, education and recreation
• Community access to Marina Center’s Clark Slough wetlands habitat (currently prohibited by law) will include a perimeter walkway or boardwalk with a kiosk and interpretive signage at vantage points along the path pointing out opportunities to see wildlife or examples of native plants. This pedestrian trail will connect with a pedestrian/bike trail along the existing railroad right of way, which will in turn connect Marina Center with downtown Eureka.

• More than 1,000 jobs will be created with Marina Center’s mix of office, retail and light industrial employment opportunities. The project will also create much needed service-sector jobs (such as security, landscaping, janitorial and maintenance, etc.) All of these jobs, in turn, will support other local jobs through the spending of workers' wages.
• Marina Center will establish new retail and office space for local businesses to expand and stay in Eureka
• As the development’s anchor retail tenant, The Home Depot will create good-paying jobs with benefits for full and part time employees as the store provides consumers with a new level of product choice and value
• Development of the Balloon Track will revive it as a contributing and useful part of Eureka, resulting in a boost for the local economy and revitalization of the area south of Old Town.

Marina Center Site Plan