SEQUIM — All they needed was a nod from the City Council.
They got that Wednesday morning.
Within minutes, work crews from Fischer General Contracting Inc. of Poulsbo began ripping to shreds — and boards — the city’s aged community center at Second Avenue and Cedar Street.
The entire demolition took fewer than four hours.
Wednesday’s council study session covered a number of agenda items, but the one spurring the most immediate action was deciding whether the community center building should be renovated or demolished and rebuilt from scratch.
City officials in 2002 had found a way to fund a renovation project by partnering with Clallam Transit System in a grant request that would tap federal transportation dollars to play up the property’s transit role.
It already serves as Sequim’s hub for Clallam Transit buses.
Not long into an inspection of the building’s shell recently, problems surfaced in the form of dry rot, carpenter ant infestation and damage to the roof joices.
Not cost-effective
After comparing cost estimates on what it would take to fix the problems, the council concurred that it makes more sense to tear the building down and start from the beginning.
“It was almost a no-brainer,” City Manager Bill Elliott said.
