County considers building for disaster response center

Published 10:43 pm Wednesday, November 18, 2009

EVERETT — A south Everett office park building might give Snohomish County a chance to rescue its emergency operations center from run-down digs at Paine Field — without breaking the bank.

The Snohomish County Council gave the tentative go-ahead to buy a $1.6 million building off 80th Street SW near Hardeson Road. County staff negotiated the price with the current owner, Seattle-based Route 526 Investors.

“We looked at several” buildings, county facilities director Mark Thunberg said Monday. “This one came closest to meeting our needs for square footage and location.”

The emergency operations center is where the county directs its response to floods, earthquakes and other disasters. Officials have complained for years about the sorry state of the current building. They say the 1940s-era structure at Paine Field is too small and is vulnerable to an earthquake.

A new 22,000-square-foot facility that consultants recommended — almost triple the size of the current building — would have cost an estimated $20 million. The vacant building the county is eyeing would provide 15,000 square feet at a much lower price. If the deal goes through, renovations to the 1974 building would cost an estimated $2 million on top of the purchase price, Thunberg said. The work is projected take 20 months or less.

A report from KDW Architects and Engineers of Seattle should give officials a better idea of how realistic those estimates are. On Monday, the council authorized a $200,000 contract with the architecture firm that also includes design work on a new facility.

County Council Chairman Mike Cooper said the plan could save a lot of money — if renovations don’t cost too much.

“The issue is that we want to see what we’re into it for,” he said.

The county already has collected $2 million in grant money for a new operations center from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state Department of Commerce.

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.