SEQUIM — The city will spend $530,000 to pave over an empty corner and create a community plaza next to its new civic center at North Sequim Avenue and Cedar Street.
The City Council approved the project on a 6-1 vote Monday, as well as another $50,000 for public art — yet to be selected — for the interior of the center that will bring the Police Department and municipal offices under one roof.
After this summer, the plaza will become home to the Sequim Open Aire Market, which until then will remain at Centennial Place nearby.
Planting the plaza with grass was not considered an option because of the maintenance involved and the mud that trucks would churn up delivering goods to the market, said Mayor Candace Pratt.
Councilwoman Genaveve Starr had recommended leaving the plaza in natural cover and keeping the market at Centennial Place.
She was the only council member to vote against the project.
Council members adopted the plaza project in three phases with these price tags:
■ Improving frontage along Cedar Street with pavers, paths and trees: $300,000.
■ Improving the plaza’s north side with trees, paver blocks and planters: $80,000.
■ Installing pavers throughout the plaza: $150,000.
The Jamestown S’Klallam tribe is carving a 25-foot-tall totem pole it will give to the city to install at the plaza, which Councilman Ken Hays called “a very potent ingredient to the downtown core.”
Funds for the improvements will come from contingency funds left over from the 33,000-square-foot, nearly $12 million civic center that remains under construction, from a balance from the real estate excise tax and from sale of revenue bonds, City Manager Steve Burkett said.
Councilman Erik Erichsen wondered if the plaza would attract loiterers like those who hung out at the nearby Sequim Transit Center.
Hays answered, “A plaza that works inhibits the sort of negative behavior you’re talking about.”
Councilman Ted Miller noted that the plaza also would be next to the Police Department.
Hays, long an advocate of a public open space at the center, said: “It creates something that we can coalesce around. This is where we’d like you to go.”
As for objections that it would absorb needed parking places, Hays said downtown already has 640 spaces for cars.
Besides, he said, “most people want to walk. We want thoughtful congestion downtown.”
Erichsen agreed.
“Phases one, two and three make it look like a civic center,” he said. “It adds to the building. It makes it look nice.”
Construction is expected to end by autumn.
In other action Monday, the council:
■ Approved a four-year labor contract with non-uniformed Teamsters employees that calls for average annual increases of 1.36 percent for an added cost of $142,272 and a total of $2.7 million.
Noting that the contract’s first year calls for a 1 percent raise but that she will receive a 1.7 percent increase in her Social Security benefits, Councilwoman Laura Dubois called it “a very good agreement.”
■ Agreed to lease residential properties at 161 and 169 W. Spruce St. for six years at $850 per month.
The city will refurbish the houses’ exteriors but probably not rent them, Burkett said, instead using the lots to park utility vehicles.
■ Voted to seek state funds to improve the Guy Cole Convention Center through state Rep. Steve Tharinger, D-Sequim.
■ Contracted with Streamkeepers for surface water monitoring for $10,000 a year.
■ Sold an easement between Spruce and Cedar streets beside the civic center to Clallam Transit for $60,000.
■ Scheduled its next meeting for 6 p.m. Jan. 12.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
