SEQUIM — City staff have paused a planned second-floor remodel of the Sequim Civic Center to focus on bringing improvements to the city’s shop at 169 W. Hemlock St.
“Functionally, it’s not what we want in the 2020s,” Sequim Public Works Director Paul Bucich said during a recent tour of the shop site.
City staff have sought upwards of $35 million in recent years through the state to improve and expand the shop facilities and city-owned undeveloped area between the shop and Third Avenue.
All or some of the streets, water, sewer, stormwater, parks and the city mechanic work out of the shop facility. Proposed improvements include covered vehicle and road material storage areas, a fuel station, a greenhouse, and space for future buildings and storage.
The city received $500,000 for a fuel station from the state, with Bucich saying a request for qualifications to design the project would tentatively go out next year.
He said it will be important for the community during outages because there are few places with functioning fuel pumps to ensure city crews, police, schools and other agencies continue operations.
Sequim also has used American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for both city shop design and utility improvements — about $1.1 million — and $67,000 for the civic center’s remodel, Sue Hagener, Sequim’s finance director, wrote via email.
In the spring, utilities were expanded at the shop site over a few months to support future development and expansion.
Despite receiving some funds for the shop area and trying for many years, Bucich said he and other staff members determined the $35 million price tag was too much for a city of 8,500 people.
“We plan to have it significantly less than $35 million,” he said. “We’ll figure out our funding strategy, likely a phased approach. Ideally, we would do it all at once.”
He said there are a lot of components to the multi-million-dollar project that are “nice to have but not needed.”
Shop changes
Bucich said that, prior to 2020, about 25 street, water, sewer and road crew members were under one roof, referred to as the main shop. However, during COVID-19, they were forced to spread out to two neighboring buildings that previously had been used as storage, and they’ve all remained there.
“Crews do a good job with what we have,” Bucich said. “But we’d like to get all the (departments) under one roof and the vehicles under cover.”
The street team’s building has no sewer system, so they must walk to the main shop to use the restroom, he said, and the water storage building uses a portable toilet. Staff members in both buildings have made work spaces, installed fridges and recently added high-speed internet.
“(The street and water teams’) buildings were not intended for long-term,” Bucich said.
Some vehicles are exposed to the elements due to the needed work space, he said.
Bucich said they’ve listened to staff the last nine months about what’s needed, and they’ll continue to form a better shop plan concept for the coming year.
Some funds, he said, have been earmarked in the 2026 budget for a covered area to go over road and sewer materials.
Civic upgrade
The city sent out a request for construction bids on the second-floor upgrades to the civic center in the fall, and it extended the deadline before pausing the project in October.
Sequim city council members unanimously approved year-end budget amendments in late October that roll forward $350,000 from the civic center remodel project for 2026 as a placeholder for shop improvements.
Hagener said during the Oct. 27 meeting that the shop has become a bigger priority than the civic center remodel because they want shop staff to have proper shelter and storage. She said they’d continue to investigate options for security issues at the civic center that were planned as part of the remodel.
Bucich said the remodel would create a new upstairs entrance and office area and that its focus is more about creating a better customer experience. The improvements would bring people to an area that would require a key card to gain access to meet with staff.
The approximate $15 million Sequim Civic Center and its plaza opened in May 2015 and houses city administrators, the police department and customer services, such as billing.
Another project at the civic center, the Spruce Parking Lot project, recently was finished. It originally was budgeted for $400,000 and came in at about $680,000 due to the addition of electrical services for the entrance gate and lighting, according to city documents.
The city purchased the three lots — 153, 161 and 169 W. Spruce St. — in June 2022 for $457,500 with its Rainy Day funds to turn the properties into a parking lot.
For more about the city of Sequim, visit sequimwa.gov.
________
Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
