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January 22, 2007
Restoration Ramps Up at Balloon Track
Over nearly a century of railroad work, Eureka’s Balloon Track endured hard use as a switching, freight and
maintenance yard. For the past 30 years, the site has stood abandoned, becoming a magnet for drug abuse,
vagrancy and crime. Security National Properties took ownership of the Balloon Track in September, buying
the 38-acre parcel from Union Pacific Railroad. The transaction signaled the long-blighted parcel’s rebirth
and renewal as the proposed Marina Center.
Less than two weeks after taking ownership of the property, Security National Properties launched a comprehensive
environmental clean-up campaign at the Balloon Track. The campaign began with the dramatic fear of removing an
overturned and damaged boxcar from the property for dismantling and recycling. The boxcar, one of 13 on the property,
was first in line due to its physical condition.
Since October, Security National has spent more than 1000 worker hours on site restoration, and in that time it has
removed nearly 120 cubic yards of appliances, hazardous waste, trash and debris (including enough used syringes to fill
a five-gallon bucket), three damaged boxcars, and hundreds of tons of discarded scrap iron, and recycled more than 100
cubic yards of concrete.
Workers have included teams from the Redwood Challenge organization, hired by Security National to wage the clean-up
campaign’s first phase.
SNP’s Balloon Track clean-up campaign involves three phases. Phase One, a thorough surface clean-up of the parcel, is
underway. Phase Two will correct the property’s acute public safety issues by adding perimeter fencing, improving emergency
vehicle access roads, and abating fire danger. The environmental restoration of Clark Slough will be the focus of Phase Three.
Funded entirely by Marina Center, the environmental restoration project will return nearly one-third of the property to natural
Pacific coastal wetlands habitat. The initiative will add to Eureka’s publicly accessible open space and will restore the area
to a natural condition it has not known for 100 years or more.
The effort will remove exotic, non-native vegetation currently dominating the wetlands and adjacent Clark Slough channel and
replace it with a diverse habitat of coastal marsh vegetation. Restoring the area to historic topographic elevations and
replacing non-native vegetation, mostly Phragmites australis, or "common reed," with native marsh vegetation will promote the
return of a wide range of water birds to the site.
November 6, 2006
Marina Center, Security National Master Holding Company to develop blighted property:
Marina Center, Security National Master Holding Company is currently redeveloping a 38-acre property
located near Eureka’s historic downtown. The property is the former Union Pacific Railroad switching,
maintenance and freight yard called the Balloon Track. More than 100 years of hard use and 30 years
of abandonment have resulted in the Balloon Track’s present state of disrepair, defined as an urban
brownfield site by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The project, known as the Marina Center, will offer retail, light industrial space
and office space for both commercial and non-profit organizations. The project will also include
recreational amenities such as a wetland preserve, a Discovery Museum as well as
biking and walking paths connecting Marina Center to downtown Eureka. The finished project
should add almost $100 million to the property tax rolls.
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