POULSBO — The closer the city’s new home gets to completion, the more sleep Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson loses. With so many uncertainties — and the impending relocation of all the city offices to the new City Hall over the Labor Day weekend — hanging over the mayor’s head, her thoughts churn with the enormous tasks that lie ahead.
As the $15.8 million towering edifice on Third and Moe takes shape, the mayor and Poulsbo City Council members are left with a punchlist of questions. From the operating costs to the nuances of trying to arrange office hours amenable to all the service departments and the specifics of window washing in the upper area of the building, there are many things about which to fret, Erickson said.
“It wakes me up at night,” she said, looking out the window of her current office at the construction site.
To make things more interesting, the current staff will need training on caring for the new City Hall, which will have modern features like an advance alarm system and a heating, ventilating and air conditioning system.
The building itself is being funded through a $6.1 million bond and cash raised through land sales. The city sold a piece of property on 10th Avenue to Harrison Medical Center , and two other properties — the site of the current City Hall and the Klingel property, a 9.5-acre undeveloped piece of land at the end of Second Avenue — are on the market.
To help her sleep better, and to help defray the still-unknown operating costs of the new City Hall, the mayor and council will lease about 2,500 square feet of space to other government agencies. So far, the only possible bite is from the city of Bainbridge Island, which might be interested in relocating its municipal court to Poulsbo’s new City Hall.
Lee Walton, interim city manager for the city of Bainbridge Island , said the city is in a tight financial bind and consolidating their municipal court services with Poulsbo’s might save some cash.
“The council asked that I study the feasibility of consolidating the courts of Pouslbo and Bainbridge,” he said.
He is expecting to report back to council in about a month, he said. Bainbridge’s municipal court is in Rolling Bay, a ten-minute drive from Bainbridge’s City Hall.
The amount of cash Bainbridge’s municipal courts would pay for rent depends on the level of services Poulsbo could provide, Erickson said, adding that the idea is still in preliminary talks.
To garner more tenant interest, the city hired real estate agent Mark Danielson with Windemere of Silverdale. He was chosen after an open application process and stood out among the applicants because of his experience with commercial real estate, Erickson said.
Danielsen didn’t return phone calls by press time.
Even though the city is setting aside space for lease, there will not be a shortage of space in the 30,000 square-foot building, which Erickson believes is a bit much for Poulsbo.
“We’re just a small, little funky town and that is not a small, little funky building,” she said.
While serving on the city council, Erickson stood by her position that the new City Hall should have a “smaller footprint.”
“Do I hate it? No. Would I have done it differently? Yes,” she said.
This story has been corrected to reflect the correct bond amount for City Hall and that neither the current City Hall or the Klingel property have been sold.
