Port Orchard councilors spent a prolonged portion of the July 22 meeting debating how to program an upper‑floor room and how restrooms should be configured in the proposed downtown community event center, with members split between redesigning for larger banquet capacity and preserving current design to meet grant and construction schedules.

The city's mayor and development staff reminded the council the building design was completed previously, that some project grants carry start‑of‑construction deadlines, and that redesigning the kitchen or moving stairwells would add cost and time. Director Nick Bond told councilors that moving the kitchen to the upper corner would be “extremely expensive” and would require relocation of stair and elevator elements and could affect the library design below.

The nut graf: Councilors weighed (1) the desire of some members to gain more banquet floor area and reconfigure the catering kitchen, against (2) staff warnings that such changes would be costly, delay the schedule and could jeopardize grant money for the waterfront plaza. The council ultimately favored keeping the current layout and asked staff to evaluate minor adjustments — including additional double or sliding doors onto the deck and signaling options to better connect indoor/outdoor spaces — while asking architects to study a non‑costly restroom stacking alternative.

A parallel and more contentious discussion concerned restroom design. The project team and the architect proposed stall‑style single‑occupancy rooms adjacent to a visible hand‑washing area; some council members and several public comments criticized this approach as inappropriate for a publicly funded community facility and raised concerns about privacy and safety when alcohol is served at events. Several councilors proposed a compromise: stack gendered restrooms (male/female) on the two floors and retain accessible family/ADA restrooms. Councilmember Deener and others said the stacked solution preserves flexibility while addressing discomfort with unisex banked stalls.

Staff presented the designers’ alternative — floor‑to‑ceiling single‑occupancy rooms with a shared sink area — and said the library team would prefer not to lose program space by shifting restrooms into library areas. Bond said the designer’s preferred layout avoids restructuring adjacent spaces and keeps the overall schedule. He also warned the council that delaying work could jeopardize state grants tied to the waterfront plaza. “If we don't start construction, we will not get an extension on that grant agreement,” he said, noting a half‑million‑dollar risk tied to the over‑water structure.

Ending: Councilors split but the majority urged staff to proceed with the existing design while seeking small changes that do not require major redesign or delay — specifically: (1) ask Rice Fergus Miller to study adding double or sliding doors from the banquet area to the deck, (2) study stacked gendered restrooms as a lower‑cost alternative to the architect’s unisex bank design, and (3) minimize schedule impacts to preserve grant funding and planned construction milestones.