Everett Schools Ask, What Do We Do With Longfellow and Colby Properties?

September 16, 2014

Everett, Everett Schools

Longfellow

The Longfellow building north of Everett Memorial Stadium.

Colby

The former School District office on Colby

Now that the Everett School District has moved into its new community resource center at 39th and Broadway, the properties at Colby and Longfellow are no longer in daily use. The Longfellow building has most recently been used by the Everett Police and Fire Departments for active shooter drills while the Colby building has sat empty. Now the Everett School District is looking for public input on what to do with the two properties. Here is a recent request for public input provided by Mary Waggoner at Everett Schools…

When the Community Resource Center (CRC) opened in November 2013, it made the former Educational Service Center on Colby Avenue and The Longfellow Building and Annex on Oakes available for other use. Public input on options for using those and other district property begins Thursday, Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m. in the Port Gardner Room of the CRC.

An online survey for those unable to attend the Thursday session is open through Friday, Oct. 10.

In 2012-13, the community helped recommend short and long-term options for ways the district could use all of its properties. This 2013 Property Use Matrix is online.
To launch public input about property use, especially of Colby and Longfellow, the district has drafted some proposed revisions to the 2013 Matrix and to reflect facilities changes made since the Matrix was last updated.

“We invite the community to share thoughts about these drafted options and to suggest other options in a couple of ways,” explained Mike Gunn, Executive Director of Facilities and Operations. We hope you will take time to visit with us next Thursday to learn more about the process and leave comments. Or, if attending that session isn’t possible, we ask community members to leave their comments online.

We’ll merge public input from the survey and from the meeting with other site and market information being gathered and updated. The Capital Facilities Advisory Council will study this information between now and November before a board decision in December.

The October through December timeline is outlined on the Facilities and Planning website.

The district-owned Community Resource Center (CRC) at 3900 Broadway is home for operational and instructional support staff and is a training and meeting center for district staff and community. It opened in November 2013 when staff previously working in the 50-year old Educational Service Center at 4700 Colby Avenue (on the left above) and the more-than-100-year-old Longfellow Building on Oakes (on the right above) consolidated into one efficient location.

With these two aging and energy-inefficient facilities available for other use, the district seeks public comment on proposed options for using them.

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