PORT ANGELES — The completion of the Border Patrol’s new $5.7 million headquarters has been delayed by more than a month to the end of May, with a move-in date now slated for the end of June.
“April 15 was an estimate on a time line,” regional Border Patrol spokesman Jeffrey Jones said, adding the reason behind the delay was not serious.
“In construction, you always typically have delays,” he said. “The contractors should have the job completed by May 30.”
The Border Patrol will be moving from cramped quarters at the Richard B. Anderson Federal Building downtown to the former Eagles Aerie lodge, a 19,000-square-foot building two miles east of downtown at 110 S. Penn St.
But Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also a tenant of the Anderson Building built in 1933 and which had planned to move, is staying put now that more space will be available, ICE spokesman Andrew Munoz said Monday.
“Everyone is experiencing budget constraints,” he said, adding that ICE has about a dozen agents stationed in Port Angeles.
Like the Border Patrol, ICE’s Port Angeles contingent covers Clallam and Jefferson counties.
“Once the Border Patrol moves out, we will look at what funding is available, and if we are able to get more office space, it would be within the existing building.”
The Eagles building, which has been gutted and expanded, looked completed from the outside Monday but still had more work left on the inside, Jones said.
“Furniture and everything else still has to go in,” Jones said, adding that computers also must be installed.
There was one large windowless building on the site Monday, and a dozen vehicles were parked in the newly paved parking lot.
But there was still what appeared to be a bare concrete foundation pad for a second building.
An approximately 6-foot-high rent-a-fence also still encircled the property.
The Border Patrol had planned to install permanently a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire on the 5-acre site, which is located in a heavily commercial-residential area and is visible by homeowners from a hilly area above the headquarters.
But the agency backed off the plan after homeowners — and city officials — objected to having such a prison-like feature in their neighborhood.
“Maybe in Clallam Bay or Pelican Bay prison, that environment would be fine,” city Planning Manager Sue Roberds told Peninsula Daily News on June 26.
There was no sign Monday of the project’s many features.
They include offices, a fitness center, dog kennels, a dog run, above-ground storage tanks, temporary holding cells, a 40-foot radio tower and tall, downward-pointing sentinel-type lighting that will be on 24 hours a day.
Piles of dirt also were stretched berm-like on the busy First Street side of the parking lot, near where residents have protested against the Border Patrol’s stepped up presence on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The building will accommodate 50 Border Patrol agents.
The agency said there are no plans to increase staffing to that amount but refused for national security reasons to say how many now staff the Port Angeles station.
The number of Border Patrol agents responsible for Clallam and Jefferson counties increased from four in 2006 to 24 in April 2009 to 36 by mid-September, according to 6th District U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, whose district includes Clallam and Jefferson counties.
The total also does not include an unknown number of Office of Air and Marine agents who are also based in Port Angeles.
They fall under U.S. Customs and Border Protection and also can arrest illegal immigrants in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
The Border Patrol’s Blaine sector, which covers Alaska, Oregon and the western half of Washington, was staffed by more than 331 Border Patrol agents as of mid-December.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
