Tonight may finally be the night.

The final emphatic flush, with which – after seven years of waterfalls, winged roofs and the utterance of more bad jokes and potty puns than anyone cares to admit – the City Council can finally put to rest the Waterfront Park bathroom debacle.

At $281,000, the latest – and likely final – iteration of the restroom will tonight go before councilors for approval.

Its design is basic – three stalls, one shower, and 300-square feet, plus some landscaping and sidewalk improvements.

After at least a half-dozen designs of varying costs and complexity, one might say the project has come full swirl.

“It went through quite a few iterations,” said Assistant City Engineer Ross Hathaway. “A lot of people had a lot of good ideas, but in the end it came down to us not being able to afford them.”

The restroom’s still-unfinished saga began in 1999, when a new master plan for the park earmarked the former structure for replacement. Aging wiring, poor ventilation, and extensive damage to the decks, railings and foundation were among the problems plaguing the 1940s-era building.

In November 2001, temporary fencing signaled its coming destruction, and initiated the planning process for a new building.

After the structure was razed, porta-potties – supposedly a temporary fix – replaced it as the park’s restroom facilities. During daytime hours park-goers were encouraged to take advantage of the bathrooms in the nearby senior center.

In the meantime, officials tried to score state funding for a new permanent structure.

In terms of design, the biggest issue was location. Some favored a discreet spot, others preferred a more prominent placement. The inclusion of boat storage in the structure also was debated.

By 2004, no restroom had been built.

As the city again took up planning for the park, the bathroom issue was thrust back into the spotlight.

Based on the results of a public survey, islanders seemed to have moved beyond bickering over where to locate the structure – they wanted something, anything, other than porta-potties.

A decision finally came in 2005, when a divided City Council gave the nod to build a state-of-the-art $225,000 facility between the city dock parking lot and the tennis courts, about 115 feet from the original restroom.

The prefabricated building with two showers, a unisex family restroom and at least four toilets was to be cut into the hillside, hopefully by the end of the year.

By June, though, arts advocates had convinced the council to undertake another round of design and public review.

The result of that process was the “butterfly bathroom,” a building wIth a roof that sloped inward and looked something like an unfurled wingspan, albeit atop another, slightly more fabulous prefab core.

The building was to include a separate covered picnic area and was expected to be done by the Fourth of July, 2006, at the earliest.

But then the projected cost had swelled to $381,000, and the following April councilors again scuttled the design, saying it was too expensive.

They approved a $325,000 budget, though no design matching that cost yet existed.

The issue at that point had been debated 13 times since the old building’s demolition.

In late 2006, a new plan for an “earth sheltered bathhouse” was unveiled as part of a new grandiose park vision.

It was to incorporate $40,000 worth of public art, including a waterfall that swooped down from the top of the restroom’s observation deck.

Unfortunately for planners and park-goers, bids on the design last spring came in at more than $1 million, due to an aggressive construction schedule. The bid was more than double what the city had anticipated.

After a second failed bid, the council in May went back to basics, settling on a $300,000 budget. Functionality again became the foremost concern.

With the dawn of 2008 came the current design for a pre-engineered, but not prefabricated, building, to be sited just south of the tennis courts.

The city received five bids, with the low bid coming from Northern Con-Agg; $5,000 in contingencies is built into the budget.

Looking back, many leaders are hesitant to place blame, preferring instead to look toward the planned structure’s potential opening later this year.

City officials balked when asked to provide a figure for design costs over the years, saying no firm total had yet been tabulated.

One City Hall watcher estimated the design sum at near $170,000, a figure that Finance Director Elray Konkel said is probably close to the actual number.

Whatever the cost, the new toilets may be flushing by the Fourth, if all goes as planned.

On the other hand, Hathaway said, given the process’ propensity for clogging, it may be better to wait until porcelain meets park.

“This thing has such a long history,” Hathaway said. “I don’t want to make any promises.”