MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — The decision could fall to the voters this year about whether to rent or buy.
The City Council is mulling options for the physical space in which to conduct city business and how to pay for it. Staff members presented an update to the City Council during a work session earlier this month.
Options include raising property taxes for six years to continue renting the interim City Hall, at 6100 219th St. SW, and repay the city’s line of credit, or diving in with a 30-year bond measure to build a scaled-down Civic Center. Voters nixed a larger bond measure in 2010.
A decision can’t be put off for long as officials do not have a funding source to pay rent for the interim City Hall beyond 2014.
“We can’t not do nothing,” Councilman Doug McCardle said. “That’s really not an option.”
The proposed levy increase would bring in an estimated $500,000 per year and cost the average homeowner $4.35 per month. These funds could be redirected to pay for a new Civic Center.
The council also is considering a higher levy increase that would bring in an estimated $600,000 per year to add parks improvements.
A levy lid lift could buy the council time to see if the economy improves and see how a proposed Regional Fire Authority would affect the cost, City Manager John Caulfield said.
Alternatively, a bond measure would pay to build a new $25 million Civic Center, down from the original $37.5 million proposal that was rejected by voters in November 2010.
The price could go lower, to around $18 million, due to a competitive bidding climate, Caulfield said.
“But to be conservative — and we want to be conservative — it’s $25 million,” he said.
Councilwoman Kyoko Matsumoto Wright said she wants to take advantage of that bidding climate — and a year in which no council member is up for re-election — and bring a bond proposal to voters this year.
McCardle said it seems the council is at a tipping point with the Civic Center project, just like it was before approving a transportation benefit district to fund a downtown revitalization project.
Building a Civic Center would mean the city would have a permanent location for a City Hall, a one-stop location for city services, and a venue for meetings, the senior center and farmers market, officials say.
Plans for the Civic Center have been scaled back in response to community feedback following the original proposal’s defeat in 2010. Wish-list items since removed include structured parking, a full remodel of the police station and 7,000 square feet of additional floor space.
Additionally, the city earlier was awarded a $250,000 grant to build an Emergency Operations Center, with the city chipping in $100,000. The operations center was included in the original Civic Center proposal.
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