Everett Looking To Buy Health District Building For $8.5 Million

For years the City of Everett has been looking to do something about employees of the Public Works Department working in unsafe buildings.

The current 14-acre Public Works Service Center campus is located just east of downtown on Cedar Street. Some of the buildings there date back to 1971, including Building 1, the administration building that houses the maintenance and operations functions of the City’s water, sewer, and road systems, as well as engineering, permit services, and traffic control.

Both Building 1 and Building 4, from which crews and equipment deploy, have been evaluated by outside engineering teams and found to not meet the minimum life-safety performance levels for buildings in the regional earthquake zone.

Engineers predict that the two buildings would sustain enough structural damage during a design-level event (the maximum considered earthquake based on specific location, soil type and the building’s lateral-force-resistance system) that they would be in danger of partial or even complete collapse.

In 2016 the city was about to pull the trigger on a $70 million dollar deal to redevelop the property where the Public Works Service Center sits. You can see that draft master plan here.

On October 5th, 2016 the city council voted to look elsewhere for the Public Works Department to relocate citing a need for a higher and better use for the property that sits on a gateway to the city.

At their meeting next Wednesday the Everett City Council will consider approving a $70,000.00 study of the Rucker Building at 3020 Rucker in downtown Everett to see how it would work to house operations office staff of the Public Works Department.

Currently the building is owned by the Snohomish Health District which has been trying to sell it for the past several months.

The space planning and facility assessment would determine costs for remodeling and improving the building to meet the needs of the Public Works Department office staff.

Along with the study request the city council will be asked to sign a sale and purchase agreement for $8.5 Million dollars plus closing costs for the building. The sale would be subject to a 120-day feasibility study.

The city still needs to find places for the workers, materials, vehicles and physical plant for Public Works activities. No word yet on if a site for that part of the operation has been selected.