EVERETT — At Brian Sullivan’s soon-to-be former law office, a conference table was stacked with bourbon, beer and wine.
The DUI attorney, along with his associates and other fellow members of the bar, were throwing a tear-down party at his Rockefeller Avenue building the day before Thanksgiving. He was the last of six landowners to vacate property that Snohomish County condemned to build a new courthouse.
“Cheers!” said Sullivan, not to be confused with the county councilman of the same name. “Here’s to the destruction of a law building.”
The pre-demolition festival didn’t include any sledge hammers to knock in drywall.
While Sullivan had to leave last week, the county doesn’t plan to start demolishing buildings on Rockefeller and Wall Street until May, facilities director Mark Thunberg said. Soon after that, people can expect to see machines digging holes in the ground.
The site across the street from Xfinity Arena also houses a parking lot.
If all goes as planned, the new courthouse should be ready for occupancy by late 2017.
The county is working to finalize how much it will pay ousted property owners to settle their claims, Thunberg said.
The construction timetable for the $162 million building recently got pushed back about two months.
That’s because of extra design work to accommodate the Sheriff’s Office administration on the top floor of the building.
During a meeting Wednesday, a vice president from architectural firm Heery International gave an overview of the building’s design.
It includes eight floors, plus a basement. (Earlier plans described the building as nine stories.)
A concrete, metal and glass exterior would take design cues from the county administration buildings across the street as well as Everett’s downtown, Heery vice president Doug Kleppin said.
Of the courthouse’s costs, $12 million is slated for security and efficiency improvements.
The first two floors of the building will include shatter-proof glass and extra concrete paneling as security measures.
The county aims to have the courthouse certified under the second-highest rating for environmentally friendly construction. That process is known as LEED, or Leadership in Energy &Environmental Design.
Among other recycling features, the building will include rainwater harvesting. They’re also looking at heat-recovery systems.
There’s not enough money in the budget to pay the several million dollars it would cost to build the structure to meet earthquake standards above those required by the current building code.
“It’s something that may or may not ever be used in our lifetime,” Thunberg said.
Several factors are driving up the cost of the building.
They include a likely 20 percent increase in drywall prices and 17 percent jump in insulation prices. Labor costs are expected to rise, too.
For now, the building remains within budget, with a narrow contingency, Thunberg said.
To pay for the courthouse bonds, the County Council voted to raise taxes in 2012 and 2013. The owner of a home assessed in the low- to mid-$200,000 range is paying about $20 more per year in county taxes because of those hikes.
A majority of the County Council voted last month to set aside money from the tax hikes to start paying the courthouse bonds when they come due, likely in 2016. The council is asking Executive John Lovick’s administration to provide quarterly updates on courthouse-related tax revenue.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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