SEQUIM — After eight years of searches, disappointments and “anguishing” — as interim City Manager Robert Spinks put it — Sequim has stepped in a new direction toward a much larger City Hall and separate Police Department.
In a unanimous vote Monday night, the Sequim City Council opted to issue two requests for qualifications for property owners interested in building a turnkey City Hall and, on a separate site, a police station — with both facilities on a lease-to-own basis.
“It’s not going to cost us anything to try it,” Councilman Bill Huizinga said.
Sequim’s existing City Hall at 152 W. Cedar St. has been too tiny for a long time, the council and city staff agree.
Compounding the predicament: The police station is stuck in the J.C. Penney shopping center on West Washington Street, where the growing department is wedged into 6,480 square feet for which it pays $4,800 a month in rent.
The police and support staff need about 24,000 square feet as they continue to grow along with Sequim, capital projects manager Frank Needham has said.
And Spinks, who is also chief of police, has long lamented his shopping-center location.
