Snohomish seeks more affordable alternative to $55 million civic campus plans

Published 1:30 am Friday, March 13, 2026

EVERETT — The city of Snohomish has begun exploring lower-cost alternatives to a planned $45 million to $55 million civic campus.

The City Council gave recently appointed city administrator Ken Klein the go-ahead on March 3 to work with the contracted architect and develop concepts for a reduced campus on the already purchased land at Third Street and Pine Avenue.

Mayor Aaron Hoffman’s objection to the campus cost was a talking point during his mayoral campaign last year.

“I can say, with confidence, those concerns were justified,” Hoffman said in a video on his personal Facebook. “The city simply could not afford the project as it was being proposed.”

The previous design included space for all city and public safety departments. The city planned to pay for the project with a combination of municipal bonds, savings, grants and the sale of city property.

Currently, the city has over $5.27 million in grants and savings for the project, with at least another $1 million that could be made in property sales, Klein said during the March 3 City Council meeting. The city also has $970,000 that can only be spent on design.

The campus’s construction will stick to the timeline in the original plan, starting in late 2026 or 2027, Klein said in an interview on Tuesday.

“We have to move quickly,” he said. “If we’re going to be building something, we want to be building something in ‘27.”

To lower construction costs, the new design won’t have space for all public services, including the police department, which would most likely remain at its current location, 230 Maple Ave., in a former bank building built in 1979.

The city’s large public utilities vehicles would also not move to the Third and Pine site. Currently, the public works building is located in a floodplain next to the Snohomish River. The city needs to find a separate location to store the trucks, Klein said in an interview on Tuesday.

During the December floods, Snohomish moved public works equipment to higher ground. Emergency vehicles are currently stored at the site, increasing the urgency to move them elsewhere.

The public works and engineering offices would move to a Snohomish County Fire District 4 annex building on Avenue D next to the current fire station. Snohomish will take ownership of the building once an interlocal agreement with the fire district, made in 2023, is completed.

To complete the interlocal agreement, the new civic campus must provide a fire district training space and a shared meeting room for the City Council and Snohomish Fire board.

To avoid bonds, Hoffman wants to “make use of property the city already owns,” he said on Facebook. “I would much rather put $10 million in grant funding toward a $10 million project.”

The city is continuing to seek grant funding, Klein said on March 3. However, to fund the previous civic campus design, the city was considering at least $30 million in bonds, he said.

Projects approved in the city budget last year — for sewer, water, parks and street improvements — require about $15 million in bonds, Klein said Tuesday. Snohomish’s maximum bonding capacity, for all projects, is $40 million, he said.

An additional $30 million bond would put the city over its maximum and would need voter approval, Klein said.

Also, the annual payment for a bond that large would be $2.5 million, Klein said on March 3. The city does not have enough yearly revenue to make that payment, he said.

“I think I’ve asked many times how we would afford a $2.5 million bond payment in the past, so I appreciate the direction that you’re thinking,” council member David Flynn said in response.

The most recent civic campus design was finalized in April 2025, but the desire for new city buildings has been around for much longer, according to council member Terry Lippincott.

“There was a lot of work to be done, considering that this will be the third iteration; I’m looking forward to seeing what the architects can do with a little creative sharpening of the pencils,” Lippincott said in an email. “I’m very mindful of wanting to be fiscally conservative, but I also understand that it is necessary to move forward on this project as it’s been something that has been discussed for the last 25 years and the need has only grown.”

It is imperative that any plan include a new location for the public utility vehicles, Lippincott said.

“If possible, I also would like to see the police station moved over,” she said.

The contractor, Lawhead Architects, will start working on the new concept around March 23, Klein said Tuesday. They most likely won’t have something to show the council until late April, he said.

Construction for the new Fire District 4 building at Pine Avenue continues and will not be directly affected.

Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay