PORT TOWNSEND — Following about a year of negotiations and an 18-month site search, Jefferson Transit officials have reached an agreement with a private landowner to acquire 10.6 acres at state Highway 20 and Four Corners Road.
The site will be the future home of Jefferson Transit.
The property purchase news was announced Tuesday at a Transit board retreat at the Port Townsend Fire Station.
Property owner Pamela Pepper recently accepted Transit’s $210,000 offer.
That offer was an increase from Transit’s original offer of $180,000.
Some time after 2009, the site will replace the current six-acre home and aged headquarters on Sims Way, said Dave Turissini, Jefferson Transit general manager.
“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 will begin in the summer of 2009.
That will be after the Hood Canal Bridge eastern-half replacement project is completed.
Transit has a major role in providing transportation while the bridge project is under way for six to eight weeks.
The cost and scale of the project has been pared back because of declining federal transportation dollars, according to Turissini.
Turissini met briefly on Tuesday with Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, who visited Port Townsend.
Turissini said Dicks was encouraging about future transit funding.
