PORT ANGELES — Homeland Security will finalize the purchase of the Eagles Aerie 483 lodge by April 29 in anticipation of the Border Patrol’s departure from the downtown Richard B. Anderson Federal Building.
The Border Patrol expects to move from 138 W. First St. to the larger facility “about a year after closing,” agency spokesman Richard Sinks said Monday.
The remodeling project is budgeted for $8 million, and “future staff expansion is anticipated,” according to Homeland Security draft environmental study of the project.
But though the 2010 original legal notice also said the Border Patrol needed a facility large enough to accommodate 50 agents, “the environmental assessment is a preliminary draft and may contain some inaccuracies,” Sinks said, adding there are no plans to increase staffing.
“The draft [environmental assessment] was framed around a square-footage requirement to accommodate the approximate number of agents currently assigned to Port Angeles,” he said, repeating the Border Patrol’s March 1 statement on potential staff expansion.
An environmental study of the Eagles building, at the corner of U.S. Highway 101 and South Penn Street, pushed the closing date from April 15 to April 29, said Pili Meyer of Coldwell Banker Uptown Realty, who represents the organization.
The study “still is working its way from desk to desk to be signed,” she said Monday.
The Eagles “have had to make some hard decisions,” Meyer added, declining to comment on the price agreed upon by the Eagles and the federal government.
Eagles’ members have moved out of their lodge.
They have since picked a site where they will build a new facility; it is behind the 2709 E. Highway 101 Safeway east of the city limit, she and Eagles real estate committee member Kevin Wheeler said.
The organization’s purchase of the new property is contingent on the sale of its old lodge, a 4.6-acre parcel listed for $1.99 million in May 2010, Meyer said.
“I imagine they will get a great, big, fat check that they will then put into an account,” she added.
Wheeler said the Eagles will move temporarily into the former St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store at 112 E. Eighth St., and will rent the facility from Peninsula Community Mental Health Center located next door.
“I’m feeling optimistic,” Wheeler said of the planned closing date.
The new parcel behind the Safeway fits the Eagles’ requirements for zoning, utilities and size.
The organization’s numbers have dwindled from a high of 3,000 to a current membership of 600 in the Aerie and 300 in the auxiliary, he said.
At 19,000 square feet, the lodge was to big for the Eagles’ requirements and too expensive to maintain, Wheeler said.
“The whole idea is to get out from underneath an inefficient building and have something where our overhead is lower and our month-to-month costs to have the doors open are lower,” he said.
“Just by building a smaller building, we achieve a certain amount of that.”
An Eagles’ building committee is working on a design and square footage for the new building, he said.
One feature that the Eagles may not take with them to their new aerie is the lodge’s signature “floating” dance floor, Wheeler said.
“I’m not sure the dance floor is coming with us,” Wheeler said.
“It’s nailed down. To take it up might destroy it.”
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladaily news.com.
