History

The whale was announced in 1983 by Ondine Coastal Attractions, Inc., as 'Leviathan Pacific,' a walk-through gray whale attraction that was to contain a gift concourse, educational dioramas, and a forty-seat theater in the skull. The concrete shell — 480 feet from rostrum to flukes, with porthole windows at the eyes — was completed in 1985 at a cost of $4.9 million, financed in part through revenue bonds issued by the Tessler Bay Port Commission on the strength of a visitor projection later described in bond documents as 'aspirational.'

Ondine entered receivership in 1986 with the whale's interior unfitted, and the structure stood empty for eleven years. The Port Commission mowed around it. Feasibility studies commissioned in 1988, 1991, and 1993 evaluated the shell for use as an aquarium, a conference center, and indoor recreational-vehicle storage respectively; all three reached materially the same conclusion, summarized in the 1993 report as 'structurally sound, programmatically unclear.'

In 1996 the shell was acquired by Costco Wholesale, whose site-selection team noted that the whale enclosed more clear-span volume than a standard warehouse and was already gray. The retrofit installed a 128,000-square-foot sales floor along the whale's long axis, loading docks in the flukes, the tire center in the tail section, and the membership desk in the mouth, which is the only public entrance. The blowhole was glazed as a skylight and certified as the building's primary smoke-relief vent; the food court was located beneath it, per the mechanical engineer's recommendation. The warehouse opened in October 1997 with a ribbon-cutting attended by two of the original Ondine bondholders, described in the local paper as 'present.'

Ongoing stewardship of the exterior is governed by a facilities agreement with the Port Commission. The whale is repainted Standard Whale Gray on a six-year cycle, and a $1.3 million seismic retrofit was completed in 2001 without interruption to store hours. The original sculpted barnacle detailing on the lower hull was removed in 2004 after a facilities committee review found it added eleven hours to each pressure-washing cycle; the barnacles are retained in palletized storage.

Local Legends

Members maintain that the free samples nearest the blowhole are more generous on overcast days. Management attributes this to staffing schedules.

It is locally repeated that the porthole eyes align with the setting sun on the anniversary of the whale's 1985 topping-out. Facilities staff note that the portholes were placed to a standard catalog spacing and that the sun sets over the ocean most evenings regardless.

Longtime residents say the forty theater seats intended for the skull were installed anyway and remain behind the pallet racking near aisle 12. The warehouse neither confirms nor denies the presence of seating.

The Controversy

In 2000 the county sign-code administrator observed that the whale, if classified as a sign advertising the business within it, would exceed the maximum permitted sign area by a factor of approximately 1,400. After a public hearing at which the whale was the only agenda item, the board of commissioners adopted the position that the whale is 'a building that resembles a whale, not a sign that resembles a building.' The written determination runs nine pages and is available at the county office for the cost of copying.

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