City hall timeline unveiled in Poulsbo
Published 3:00 pm Friday, January 5, 2007
POULSBO — The murky crystal ball engulfing Little Norway’s city hall became a little clearer at Wednesday night’s city council meeting as Mayor Kathryn Quade released the tentative timeline for the project.
“It’s an ambitious timeline, but we need to keep this project moving forward,” Quade said.
The request for proposal (RFP), which will include an outline of what the city hopes to achieve with the project as well as how each group plans to achieve those goals with design and financial plans, should be made public by Feb. 13 and will remain open until April 13, she said.
Finalists will be announced by April 20, and the interview committee’s recommendation should be ready for council approval by April 25, she said.
“We are looking at a lease/build, joint ownership agreement, a lease-to-own and also a property swap for 35,000 square feet of Class A office space, which was identified by BLRB,” Quade said, referring to the space needs study completed by BLRB Architects of Tacoma as part of earlier plans to build a city hall building on 10th Avenue.
The city purchased the property near the intersection of Lincoln Road and 10th Avenue from Olympic Property Group on Nov. 22, 2005 for $2.1 million for the purpose of a $14.4 million city hall building. Those plans were put on hold by the city council in April 2006, and the decision was handed to the voters on Nov. 7 with the majority favoring building a new city hall at an undefined downtown location.
Tenant improvements and interior furnishings are also included in the RFP along with a project development and design process within the constraints of state law, Quade said.
After listening to Quade’s explanation of the anticipated process, Councilman Jeff McGinty asked if the exact location for the city hall building had been determined.
“Has a decision been made on where the property would be and what would be the ultimate goal?” McGinty asked.
Quade responded the property could be the existing city hall location, the King Olaf parking lot or a possible land swap.
“We wanted to keep it as open as possible,” Quade said.
Councilman Ed Stern said the RFP represents the city’s only chance to explore all the available options for constructing a new city hall and possibly addressing the downtown parking issue.
“If they aren’t acceptable, we would go in-house like we did with 10th Avenue,” Stern said.
As one of the architects of the proposed RFP, Councilman Dale Rudolph said he feels city hall could be part of a larger complex.
“If we saw a sketch of a hotel and city hall looked like the last seven rooms, we could turn it down,” Rudolph said. “One of the important things is that this is going to be an evaluation process.”
The RFP is worded to allow for the most possible alternatives and will give city officials the opportunity to examine the financial package as well as the design proposal, he said.
