Staff report
POULSBO — Demolition of Poulsbo’s old city hall on Jensen Way will be timed as close as possible to the beginning of construction of a hotel at the site, according to Mayor Becky Erickson.
The city has completed a boundary line adjustment (the sale of the hotel site does not include the adjacent King Olav parking lot), the developer has hired an architect, and a pre-application meeting between developer and city planning staff is expected soon. A contingency of the sale was that the owner had six months from the date of purchase to get site plan approval from the city. That’s December. No construction date has been set.
Tear down the old city hall too early, and you’ve got a big hole — the basement level — that could fill with water during the upcoming rainy season. Fill it with dirt, and the developer will have to excavate it because the hotel will have underground parking.
So, demolition of the old city hall will be timed to coincide with the beginning of construction of the hotel.
Michael Burns, a Bainbridge Island businessman, purchased the former city hall property — at 19050 Jensen Way — in June for $1.2 million.
At the time, he told the North Kitsap Herald that “The main idea is a hotel” with possibly some retail space, perhaps a restaurant, conference space and meeting rooms. “Really what we want to do is put a really nice building in downtown Poulsbo and help invigorate the downtown scene,” he said at the time.
Burns owns Blue North Fisheries in Seattle, a sustainable timber business in Idaho, and a sustainable agricultural business in Oregon that specializes in organic beef.
He also owns a real estate company and Madison Avenue Development, Inc., which will oversee the hotel project and has developed land in the area:
In Poulsbo, a commercial center at 10th Avenue and Liberty Road, consisting of three-story buildings, home to KeyBank, John L. Scott Real Estate, and other tenants.
On Bainbridge Island’s Hildebrand Lane, various retail and residential buildings, with a bank, doctors’ offices, a Laundromat, pet store, pizza restaurant, and second-floor apartments. The company also owns the Camelia Apartments on Tormey Lane and built cottages on Madison Avenue.
Of the hotel project, Burns said in an earlier interview, “I think the availability of the site (was attractive) and then there’s been studies done that show there is a need for hotel in downtown Poulsbo. So those two factors led us to believe that we can take a run at it.”
Meanwhile, the old police station on Hostmark Avenue is still on the market. There’s been some interest, but no offers yet.
“There’s been people kicking the tires for some time, but we have not seen anything come in to city government at this time,” Mayor Erickson said.
