Kimberly Sherertz and her late husband, William Sherertz, shared a number of interests, including their mutual enthusiasm for boating on the Columbia River
But the Battle Ground widow and mother of two didn’t share her husband’s passion for the $5 million fine-dining venue he envisioned for Washougal’s waterfront.
Sherertz said she just doesn’t have the drive to open and operate the multimillion-dollar Black Pearl restaurant that William financed and broke ground on last fall. That’s why she is trying to lease or sell the two-story restaurant’s shell. It was supposed to open this summer on the former site of Washougal’s longtime Parker House Restaurant, overlooking the marina at the Port of Camas-Washougal.
“I am just so sad that he couldn’t do this,” Kimberly Sherertz said.
William Sherertz, chairman and chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Barrett Business Services Inc., died unexpectedly on Jan. 20. He was 64 years old.
At first, Kimberly Sherertz wasn’t sure what to do with the $5 million restaurant project. The 12,000-square-foot building is part of her husband’s estate, which he left to his wife, the couple’s son, Cole; and their daughter, Elizabeth; as well as William’s two daughters, Alex and Sarah.
Overwhelmed by decisions, the family finally decided “to push the pause button,” Kimberly Sherertz said.
That has meant allowing contractors to finish the building’s exterior walls and roof, install doors and erect the building’s three-sided glass front with its views of Mt. Hood, the 350-slip marina and the Columbia River, just upstream from Steamboat Landing and Cottonwood Beach.
Before they put the project on mothballs, construction crews laid gravel down and leveled the area surrounding the east and north sides of the structure.
Paving the site will accommodate more than 100 parking spaces or an additional building, said Ron Frederiksen, president of RSV Building Solutions, the project’s general contractor.
“I would say it is roughly two-thirds complete,” he said.
William Sherertz had originally planned a restaurant with a second-floor exhibition kitchen and seating for up to 100 patrons at tables positioned to take advantage of the view.
The restaurant’s ground floor was to be a bit more casual, except for its sweeping staircase and 5,000-bottle wine cellar. Plans for the first floor were to accommodate 40 patrons in casual indoor and outdoor seats that would front the marina.
But the restaurant’s new operators won’t have the same vision, which is why Frederiksen hasn’t yet routed the building’s plumbing and electrical lines.
“What we really have there is a shell building with no utilities or internal accommodations,” he said.
In the meantime, Kimberly Sherertz said the restaurant continues to draw interest from boaters who dock next to the unfinished building.
“We’ve had a lot of people asking about it,” she said. “It’s poised at the right time and place.”
The restaurant site is just off state Highway 14 at the Second Avenue exit where Best Western recently opened a $5.5 million hotel to capture road tourists at the entrance to the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Meanwhile, port officials say the marina’s occupancy rate is 89 percent, with slips renting for between $70 and $285 per month.
A $28 million state transportation project is set to start in June to improve state Highway 14 and its access routes to the port and nearby commercial property, including the restaurant site.
“Right now, it’s an open canvas,” Sherertz said.
