EVERETT — Snohomish County Executive John Lovick on Wednesday recommended sticking with plans to build a new downtown courthouse on Wall Street north of the county’s administrative buildings.
Some County Council members said they’d favor that course, if they can satisfy the city of Everett’s parking demands and keep the project within a $162 million budget. They have been pushing Lovick to stake out a position all year.
“The proposal that is being presented to you today by staff is a proposal that I support completely and it is my recommendation to you,” Lovick said.
To salvage existing plans, the county would need to enter into a partnership with Everett. It would likely entail a 20-year lease of about 300 parking spaces in a future city-built structure on Hewitt Avenue.
As those negotiations advance, some council members have struck up parallel discussion about other options: choosing another site for the justice center or even abandoning the project at great expense.
If county leaders were to give up now, they would still have committed $29.3 million in taxpayer money with nothing to show for it. That’s $3 million more than what officials said only a week ago.
Most of the expense is for an obligation to pay 10 years of interest on $75 million in bonds taken out for the project. The county already has spent $8.6 million for property condemnations and architectural designs specific to the existing proposal on Wall Street between Rockefeller and Oakes avenues. The land includes a county parking lot with more than 130 spaces and six smaller business lots that the county condemned last year to make way for the new courthouse.
Everett city leaders put the project in doubt on Christmas Eve, passing emergency parking rules for new government buildings in the downtown business district. That mandated more than 300 spaces at the county’s proposed 250,000-square-foot justice center.
The county had designed the building with only 30 to 40 spaces, reasoning they would merely replace the 1967 courthouse on the south side of Wall Street, about a block west.
Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson has said Lovick’s deputy executive, Mark Ericks, led him to believe during private conversations last year that the project would include substantially more parking.
Council Chairman Dave Somers on Wednesday urged his colleagues to support Lovick’s office negotiating a partnership with Everett.
“If the city says ‘no,’ then the county could explore other options,” Somers said.
After Lovick made his recommendation on Wednesday, staff presented the council with five different county-owned properties outside of Everett where a courthouse could, in theory, be built. There were no estimates on cost and it was unclear whether council members were taking those alternatives seriously.
Councilman Ken Klein, meanwhile, said he would like to have two architectural firms take another look at two options the council ruled out in 2013.
One was an extensive renovation of the old courthouse and the adjacent Mission Building, with the addition of a new three-story building.
Another would involve relocating the courts and related functions to temporary space, so the existing courthouse could be torn down and a new one constructed on the same spot.
“I disagree that we can’t change our mind at this point,” said Klein, who took office last year. “If the taxpayers get the service they need for a lesser price, then why not look at it?”
Somers said it makes little sense to back away from decisions the council made years earlier.
“I personally am tired of chasing new options,” he said.
There’s urgency in deciding how to proceed. The county is losing about $200,000 for every month of delay — whatever course they end up taking.
“Those are dollars we will not get back — they’re gone,” facilities director Mark Thunberg said.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund
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