POULSBO — If the Historic Downtown Poulsbo Association represents the lifeblood of Little Norway, then advocates for a downtown city hall location believe the building is its heart.

Without city hall, downtown would eventually wilt and become little more than a bunch of empty buildings, said Linda Berry-Maraist, who is part of the Citizens for a Downtown City Hall group.

“Fifty years ago, cities moved their city halls out of town, and now they’re fighting to come back,” Berry-Maraist said. “Why should we repeat the mistake others made 50 years ago?”

Fifty years from now, residents might ask why city hall was moved out of downtown during a period of city center revivals, which includes Bremerton, Berry-Maraist said.

“Government is a catalyst,” she said. “Taking city hall out of downtown results in a downturn.”

That decline might not be immediately visible, but over time it will be noticeable, Berry-Maraist said.

City hall is part of what makes Poulsbo’s downtown a real downtown, said Jan Harrison, who moved to the area from Boston, Mass.

“To build city hall up on 10th Avenue is going to gut downtown,” Harrison said.

As a sales representative, Harrison said she has encountered people from as far away as Toronto, Canada, who know about Poulsbo and specifically its charming downtown.

“It feels like a real downtown, and city hall is part of that,” she said.

While the downtown corridor is inundated with visitors during summer and holiday seasons, city employees help pick up slack during the slower times of the year, Harrison said.

Even though BLRB Architects of Tacoma did an excellent job studying the 10th Avenue site, the downtown option wasn’t fully explored by the council, Berry-Maraist said.

City staff input was sought for the city hall location, but the mayor and council failed to ask the general public where it thought city hall should be, she said.

“The mayor and city council members hire city staff to help them conduct city business,” Berry-Maraist said, adding that it appears staff directed the council to the 10th Avenue location. “Downtown wasn’t even considered.”

If the council had studied downtown as much as the 10th Avenue site, the result might have been different, Berry-Maraist said.

In addressing the issue of the unknowns of the downtown city hall location, Bill Austin said the existing city hall shows how things will be if city hall remains downtown.

Parking problems will continue even if city hall is located on 10th Avenue, Austin said.

“This isn’t a new building to downtown,” Harrison said. “They’re not going to quadruple the number of employees overnight.”

However, if a developer purchases the existing city hall property, there are no guarantees about public parking, Harrison said.

The 10th Avenue site is also limited because of wetlands, which consume almost half of the total land on the 8-acre site, Austin said.

“The CAO is going to have substantial impacts,” Berry-Maraist said, noting the 40-foot setbacks from the wetlands on the 10th Avenue site. “It’s like Poulsbo is saying, ‘Don’t do what we do. Do what we say.’”

Traffic on SR 305 creates access issues to the 10th Avenue site and putting city hall there would raise significant questions, she said.

“If we’re going to create something special and unique do we want to put it downtown or do we want to put it on 10th?” Berry-Maraist asked. “Downtown is such a special place.”

In the end, supporters of the downtown city hall site believe the decision comes down to where voters want to invest the estimated $12-15 million for a new government building.

“Do we want to invest it on 10th Avenue or do we want to reinvest in our downtown,” Berry-Maraist asked.