PORT TOWNSEND – Jefferson Transit has applied to the Federal Transportation Administration for a $5.8 million grant to help pay for construction of a new transit center.
Transit General Manager Dave Turissini said a successful grant should finish the financing of the project, with Transit providing $4.3 million and a 20 percent match of the grant, which would be taken from Transit’s reserves.
“It would be the most economical phased-in modular concept, where it could be built now, and then add on in the future,” said Turissini.
“I will not start the project until I’ve got the money in hand.”
Transit officials estimated it would be eight weeks before the grant would be awarded, if it is approved by the FTA.
The center, as planned, would be built in 2009.
Following about a year of negotiations and an 18-month site search, Jefferson Transit officials in October reached an agreement with a private landowner to acquire 10.6 acres for $210,000 at state Highway 20 and Four Corners Road, between Port Townsend and Port Hadlock.
The site would be the future home of Jefferson Transit, replacing the six-acre site and aged headquarters on Sims Way, said Turissini.
“Hopefully, we can now move forward,” said Turissini.
He figures now that construction of a $9 million, 42,000-square-foot new administrative center, bus maintenance and parking facility would begin in the summer of 2009, after the Hood Canal Bridge eastern-half replacement project is completed.
Transit will play a major role in providing transportation during the six to eight weeks that the bridge project is under way.
The cost and scale of the project has been pared back because of declining federal transportation dollars, said Turissini.
The transit board settled on the site at the northeast corner of Four Corners Road and state Highway 20 after looking at nearly 20 sites from Port Townsend to the Tri-Area for a new center.
Board members finally settled this year on the property near Jefferson County International Airport.
A modular approach to the building, enough to meet needs for the next 10 years, would be the alternative to building for the next 20 to 30 years, Turissini said.
That redesign approach would allow transit to add on in the future.
Transit, with about 40 employees, both part-time and full-time, has been growing at a rate of about 7 percent a year.
Figures show that ridership has soared more than 15 percent in 2006 over 2005, and Turissini said the ridership rise was a result of rising fuel prices.
That rising ridership trend continues as gas prices head toward $4 a gallon, he said.
