SEQUIM – After years of shopping for a new City Hall site, the Sequim City Council has chosen a shopping center.
The city wants to buy Bell Creek Plaza at 990 E. Washington St., City Manager Bill Elliott said.
It has offered $11 million to the plaza’s owners, Union Community LLC, located in Mill Creek, a Seattle suburb.
The 150,000-square-foot shopping center, anchored by QFC and Staples, has several vacant storefronts, including the 27,000-square-foot former BigLots space and the 21,000-square-foot store that used to be Swain’s Outdoor.
If the city’s $11 million offer for the shopping center is accepted, and all goes as planned, the city could move its administrative, planning and public works offices into the former Swain’s building by 2009, he said.
Elliott expects to hear a yes or no on the offer later this week.
The city wants – and needs – the plaza’s current tenants to stay.
“They will generate revenue to help us make the payments,” on the purchase of the center, Elliott said.
That revenue will make it unnecessary for the city to issue a bond to raise Sequim residents’ taxes, he added.
Combined with general fund money, tenants’ lease payments should cover the costs of moving City Hall into the plaza.
Bell Creek Plaza was purchased by Union Community on Jan. 2, 2004, from Beta Sequim LLC for the same amount – $11 million – that the city is offering.
The asking price was $11.3 million.
GVA Kidder Mathews, a Seattle-based commercial real estate brokerage firm involved in the 2004 sale, said the purchase of the shopping center was all cash, with no contingency financing.
Other cities such as Lakewood in Pierce County have located their municipal buildings in shopping centers, Elliott said.
Bell Creek Plaza offers many possibilities for other uses, including an adjacent 2.5-acre vacant lot.
“Who knows what we’ll do with that,” the city manager said.
Sequim Mayor Walt Schubert pronounced himself “thrilled” Friday afternoon.
“This site meets all of our needs,” he said. “There are some hoops to jump through . . . some negotiating that needs to be done, but we’re going to be able to fund this with money from the general fund and income from the tenants.”
