Port Angeles – The Landing in Port Angeles will soon undergo a name change as one part of its upgrades and remodeling by new owner Erik Marks and his business partner Sam Grello.

After negotiating for the building in 2016, Erik finally established ownership in 2018. Marks noted that The Landing is the only commercial building in the city that provides direct aquatic interface.

He told the PABA members that his vision for the property had two components:

How its positioned, in terms of understanding of society of the group and the dynamics of the interaction with it. And the second, is how its positioned physically and when people look at it and really that related to the fact that it’s on the water it’s called “The Landing”. If you’re coming from the land, you maybe get to a marina or a warf or a peer but you don’t get to something called “The Landing”. Really my vision is we’re changing the name of the “Landing Port Angeles”.

By this summer, visitors to the Port Angeles Wharf building will notice new signage, new paint, the removal of the Down Riggers restaurant outside deck, and the removal of the dock building. Removal of the second level parking and the ramp is also part of the new upgrade. Marks did say that new parking will be added following the removal of the ramp.

Another addition to the new inside space included an Arcade. General Manager, Sam Grello talked about the challenges of getting the arcade up and running.

I thought it was going to be pretty easy, just put the games in there let them play but my tenants quickly reminded me that there’s a lot more to arcade management. So we had to deal with the games breaking down and that happens pretty frequently. So we found the kid who is able to fix them. He’s a student at Port Angeles High School.  People dfinitely let me know what they were thinking about the arcade. We’ve started hosting parties birthday parties and a really cheap price point thirty dollars. We get all kinds of users between adults after a couple of drinks at Downriggers going down to have a loud air hockey competition.

Grello said that the arcade has about 200 users per day, with 45 machines in operation. He said that future plans include expanding the arcade to include two karaoke rooms.

Marks is still working on filling his available spaces with business people. He shared two challenges he has noticed about the Port Angeles area.

One was, I won’t say the absence, but the really small amount of entrepreneurial zeal that’s here versus Seattle. I knew it would be that way, but I don’t know how much it would be that way. I think PA would be helped by having some younger people come into the business mix. So that’s one of the things I had to learn. That I could have space and it could be good space at a good price and I couldn’t miss it because someone didn’t have the courage of the capital or a modeling or whatever in order to get into this. The other thing that I really learned here, I thought I could come in and make these changes in two years and will retain at the building and I’ve changed my timeline and vision now to more and more five to eight year range to complete all of this.

The only remaining space is in the old wine bar, and Marks is currently looking for a business to fill that spot. Interested people can contact The Landing at info@thelandingmall.com.