SEQUIM — Seniors in this community are taking a step closer to a new, larger activity center with the purchase – at an enviable price — of some prime Sequim real estate.
“We won the bid for the land that was going to be the Sequim rest area,” Michael Smith, executive director of the Sequim Senior Activity Center, said Friday.
Only bidder
At a public auction Wednesday in Tumwater, he was the only bidder on the parcel, which the state of Washington once planned to turn into a place where truckers and other travelers could pull in.
The price for the nearly 4.5 acres is $218,542.81, or $1.12 per square foot, Smith said.
The land, which lies just north of U.S. Highway 101 between Simdars and Lofgrin roads near Sequim’s eastern edge, is to be the site of a 20,000-square-foot senior center with a 140-space parking lot, Smith added.
He estimates the construction costs to top $5 million, so fundraising is well under way.
Already, 140 Sequim senior center members have donated $52,005 toward the land purchase and now, Smith noted, “We need to pay the $166,538 balance by June 21” to avoid having to borrow.
He’s feeling confident about Sequim’s generosity, in light of the gifts so far. And on Friday, a couple who are members of the senior center brought in a $4,500 check.
Bus tours
Smith is also inviting all community members — senior or not yet — to take one of many planned bus tours of the center’s new property.
The next one will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 11, and participants should phone the senior center at 360-683-6806 or e-mail sequimsr@olypen.com to reserve seats.
Smith and the center’s board of directors, meantime, have been studying what other senior centers are doing to serve their growing constituencies.
They envision an ultramodern center for Sequim –possibly, Smith added, a multistory building to take advantage of the land’s position overlooking the city and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
A covered portico for loading, solar panels and a rooftop garden are other features he hopes for.
Move in by 2018
The goal is to raise enough money to start construction within five or six years and move into the new center by 2018, Smith said.
He and the board will seek grants and gifts from foundations, government entities and individuals, and are exploring the possibility of naming the center for a major donor.
The existing senior center, at about 10,000 square feet, is a low-profile building at 921 E. Hammond St.
Smith, the board and the members fill it with activities, however, and membership has risen to 1,495.
For a newsletter listing classes, trips and social events, phone or visit the center or see www.SequimSeniorCenter.org.
When announcing the land purchase, Smith didn’t rein in his delight. A couple of months ago, he and several board members saw an ad in the Peninsula Daily News for the auction.
“We drove to Tumwater [on Wednesday] to turn in the bid in person,” and that afternoon, a state official announced that the Sequim Senior Activity Center was the winner.
“We let out a little ‘whoo-hoo'” and drove back home, Smith said.
Rest stop
The transaction also follows a change in direction for the Washington Department of Transportation, which had planned for years to build the Northeast Peninsula Safety Rest Area on the Sequim parcel.
The state bought the land in 2000 for $151,500, said Don Plotfelter, Transportation’s maintenance operations manager for the Olympic region.
But “there was a lot of opposition,” he added. “The neighborhood had grown up around it,” and some residents didn’t want trucks rumbling in throughout the night and day.
The Sequim City Council agonized over the rest stop too, with some members fiercely opposed.
Then “Clallam County stepped up,” Plotfelter said, and expressed interest in building a rest area near the Morse Creek viewpoint off Highway 101 just west of Port Angeles.
And so the Deer Park Safety Rest Area will be built within the next two years, Plotfelter said.
“It makes good sense,” he said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
