HANSVILLE — Just in time for spring, the Greater Hansville Area is beginning a metamorphosis, transforming the North End’s downtown area by adding a new place for neighbors and friends to meet.

Forbes Landing park, also known as Norwegian Point Park, is scheduled to start welcoming visitors on March 31. In preparation for the opening, residents will host a public meeting Feb. 15 to discuss the site with some of those who had a hand the park’s creation. The session will address the park itself, not the much anticipated boat launch also desired in the area.

“The main thing about the park is it will be a downtown gathering area, which we are lacking, other than the (Hansville Market),” said Hansville Greenway Association president Ken Shawcroft. “There’s no public beach downtown now, and this will provide 400 plus feet of public waterfront. It will make a good gathering place for informal meetings.”

The site will also provide an alternative to Buck Lake Park, which has been the main informal meeting area for Hansville residents. It has become crowded in the summer because there aren’t many other similar places in the immediate vicinity, he said.

To create more options, Kitsap County approved the $1.5 purchase of Forbes Landing in September 2005. It used a $1 million grant given to the county in summer 2004 by the Washington State Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation (IAC), and $500,000 from the county’s capital facilities budget to buy the three acre parcel. Though the park is far from completed, a stretch of 420 feet of waterfront is ready to open. As a result, county and IAC officials will discuss what can be done at the park and what amenities residents would enjoy, said HGA vice president Fred Nelson.

“The meeting with the IAC reps and the county is to discuss the IAC grant restrictions, what the county can and can’t do,” he said. “By then, we’ll also have a better handle on what the name of the park is going to be. Right now, because of the legal aspects of the grant, it’s called Forbes Landing, but we would rather it was Norwegian Point Park.”

“This is very important,” said Kitsap County Commissioner Chris Endresen. “This may be the most important piece of real estate that defines Hansville. We have to make sure we do the right thing, and focus on what the community wants.”

The property has several buildings from the era when Forbes Landing was a fishing resort, but those will be closed when the park first opens due to safety issues, Shawcroft said. Some of them may need to be razed, Nelson added, but residents have expressed a desire to keep and even use the buildings.

“The water view of Hansville is that it is a small, waterfront village,” Shawcroft said. “A lot of us would like to see the buildings retained, at a minimum rebuilt along the same lines. Some people right now are looking into historical money and grants to restore them, get them up to code.”