TULALIP – Crews could begin clearing ground for the Tulalip Tribes’ long-awaited Hibulb Museum within a month.
The $10 million tribal history museum will span 35,000 square feet on land where Tulalip Data Services currently operates in two modular buildings, said Steve Gobin, deputy general manager of Quil Ceda Village, the tribes’ casino and retail complex.
Tribal leaders are working on the museum’s final design plans, Tulalip Tribes general manager Shelly Lacy said. They are interviewing candidates for a museum fund development director, who will develop the museum’s budget and coordinate fundraising efforts.
The museum project is part of a major construction effort by the tribe to move all of its departments out of temporary or outdated buildings.
Tulalip Data Services, which is part of the tribes’ Quil Ceda Village, will move to a $1.5 million building behind the Quil Ceda Village administration offices.
“The (Data Services) building is a direct result of the museum project,” Gobin said. “It will house the tech program, which is currently in a substandard building. They just needed to move.”
That building won’t be finished until December, Gobin said.
Until then, crews will clear ground around the modular buildings for the museum.
All over the Tulalip Reservation, employees are shuffling from one building to another in an ongoing effort to move each department out of converted mobile homes and, for the first time, into permanent facilities.
The tribes’ 65 governmental departments are spread out over five miles. By August 2008, those departments will move to a new tribal administration building currently being erected on a bluff that overlooks Tulalip Bay. The $28 million structure designers say will boast a sheer glass face and will replace the rough-hewn wooden building the tribal government has used since the early 1970s.
Quil Ceda Village is a venture separate from tribal government. It’s not clear when departments associated with Quil Ceda Village will move out of the cramped trailers they’ve used since the casino and retail complex opened.
“This was supposed to be temporary,” Gobin said of the modular unit that houses his office.
There’s no plan yet to build a permanent structure for Gobin’s office.
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
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