Clover Island restaurant losing its nearly 50-year-old dock on the Columbia River

A popular dinner spot on Kennewick’s Clover Island is about to lose the feature that helped give it its name.

Cedars at Pier One will soon lose its dock after the Port of Kennewick opted not to replace the structure, now at the end of its useful life after sitting in the water for nearly half a century.

Boaters need not fret too much. The restaurant, owned by Carrie and Doug Lundgren, is still accessible via the Columbia River.

Diners arriving by water can moor at the public docks on the sheltered side of the island, then walk the short distance to 355 N. Clover Island Drive.

The dock is included in the Lundgrens’ agreement to lease the restaurant site from the port. The deal specifies that their company, Boulder Heights, would keep the dock clean while the port would maintain it.

But the dock is failing and it would be too expensive and too burdensome go modernize it. Specifically, the metal pilings the dock sits on are showing the effects of five decades of current, wind and wake from passing vessels, including watercraft, barges and cruise boats.

A concrete dock replaced a wooden one in 1996, but the update didn’t address the pilings.

With the end in sight, the port built public moorage on the south side of Clover Island in 2006 when it overhauled the marina, said Tana Badler Inglima, deputy port director.

Replacing the old dock and pilings would be more than simply switching out the old one with new. A modern dock would have to be ADA accessible and be designed with aquatic life in mind. That’s too expensive for a structure in such a hostile environment.

The port decided to remove the entire structure after reaching an agreement with the Lundgrens.

The couple agreed to waive their right to a dock in exchange $18,000 off their annual land lease payments.

The new lease, approved by the port commission on Aug. 27, translates to $1,500 a month through the end of the lease in 2049.

It begins in September and reduces the restaurant’s base rent to $2,548, from $4,016. The lease includes regular cost-of-living adjustments in the future.

Clover Island

The Lundgrens have owned and operated Cedars since late 2019, when they bought it from Darci and David Mitchem, who retired.

Cedars is one of several visitor destinations on the port-controlled Clover Island.

Landlubbers can access the island from Columbia Drive via South Washington Street/North Clover Island Drive and by water at the boat launch as well as the public and private docks.

Clover is home to the Clover Island Inn, Ice Harbor Brewery at the Marina, a U.S. Coast Guard Station, a lighthouse, a yacht club, public marina and port offices.

▪ In related news, the city of Richland removed its swim dock at Howard Amon Park on Aug. 27, in part to help curtail cyanotoxins in the area.

The dock had served as a collection point for debris, according to the city and the Benton Franklin Health District.

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