Clear Lake City Council to consider second amendment to professional services agreement for Sea Wall repairs

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake City Council tonight will consider a second amendment to a professional services agreement with RDG Planning & Design of Des Moines for the rehabilitation of the Sea Wall downtown.

Some people earlier this year had raised concerns about the future of the structure, but City Administrator Scott Flory says a historic preservation architect recently determined that while the Sea Wall does need some attention, it is in no danger of being lost.  “There’s definitely a need for some mortaring and some tuck-pointing and some granite replacement and those kinds of things, but this project was done in 1936, and the type of mortar that was used by those folks in that day was unrivaled. That opinion from that historic preservation architect was again that this wall was not in any danger of going anywhere.”

Flory says the city would like to get the Sea Wall on the National Register of Historic Places, but that is a process that will not happen overnight.   “That again is an extremely long process. We’re looking by the time the State Historic Preservation Office reviews it, they only have a certain window that they review it, and then there’s an extended process where it goes to the National Park Service in Washington DC, and that’s probably about a year process, we’re probably looking well into maybe August of 2023 before we would have an opinion on the placement status for that.”

Flory made his comments on a recent edition of the “Ask the Mayor” program on AM-1300 KGLO. The Clear Lake City Council meets at 6 o’clock tonight at City Hall.