POULSBO — The Poulsbo City Council gave Mayor Becky Erickson permission on Dec. 17 to begin negotiations for the sale of the city’s old police station.
“This is authorizing me to make an agreement,” Erickson told the council before it unanimously voted to approve the negotiation.
Sound West Group of Bremerton has approached the city with interest of purchasing the 24,829-square-foot property in downtown Poulsbo. Erickson said no price or site plans have been discussed yet.
“We’re entering into a negotiation for a contingency sale,” Erickson said after the council meeting. “What happens over the next three to four weeks is that I will work with Wes Larson and Michael Brown (of Sound West Group) to negotiate the sale agreement. The contingencies will be the timeline, price and terms.”
She added, “They put forth a letter of intent that basically was a good offer. Now we have to fine tune it.”
The 3,800-sqaure-foot vacant building that once housed Poulsbo’s police department would likely be demolished as a result of a deal with Sound West Group, Erickson said.
As negotiations have only just begun, Erickson was uncertain as to what ultimately would become of the property should Sound West Group purchase it.
“There have been mentions of apartments, but I don’t know if that is the case,” she said. “I would assume that is the direction they are going because they are doing the Spyglass Hill apartments in Bremerton.”
The Spyglass Hill apartment complex is a $15 million, 80-unit apartment complex under development on Bremerton’s Highland Avenue, overlooking downtown.
Sound West Group is a commercial brokerage company that leases and manages properties. It also acquires and develops properties, and builds apartment, office and retail buildings. The company also dabbles in single-family housing.
The old police station overlooks Liberty Bay and sits off of Hostmark Street, shortly before it turns into downtown’s Front Street. Like Poulsbo’s old city hall property at the other end of downtown, it’s sat vacant since the new city hall was occupied in 2010. In November, the city lowered the property’s price to $950,000 to help attract buyers. It was a 9.5 percent price drop from the previous list price of $1,050,000.
