MUKILTEO — It’s been a long time coming, but this city has a place it can truly call home.
City staff and officials on Friday began carrying boxes from Mukilteo’s long-time leased city hall to the city’s new, $8.5 million headquarters at 11930 Cyrus Way.
Construction crews were still working on finishing touches on Friday. The new, 15,000-square foot City Hall is scheduled to open for business Tuesday.
“We’re excited,” said Gini Schacker, who works in the finance department.
For 16 years, the city has operated out of a warehouse at 4480 Chennault Beach Road. It’s been crowded, cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and its facilities are far from state-of-the-art.
For many of those years, city officials and residents debated — sometimes heatedly — the merits of different locations for a new building.
In late 2006, the decision was made to purchase a piece of property toward the south end of the city, at the corner of Cyrus Way and Harbour Pointe Boulevard S., for the new building.
Construction began last March. The original budget for the project was $7 million, with change orders, furniture and sales tax adding to the cost, finance director Scott James said.
The move was going smoothly on Friday, employees said. They packed boxes for several weeks beforehand, and some began going through files and storage space a year ago, cleaning out items that are no longer needed.
The new City Hall was built with environmental concerns in mind, officials said. The building was made with recycled materials and wood from regional lumber mills. It also includes a slanted roof that will be covered with a layer of sod to reduce runoff; overhangs and sun shades on the outside to reduce heat gain on the inside; low-flow toilets; and a porous concrete parking lot that will allow water to seep through to a bed of rock beneath rather than directly into storm drains.
Designed by ARC Architects of Seattle, the building has been recognized by the Washington, D.C.-based United States Green Building Council as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design structure, Mayor Joe Marine said.
The building received the council’s LEED-Gold certification, the second-best of four possible ratings.
A large, wedgelike entryway extends up two stories and divides the City Council chambers from offices. Unlike the old building, the council chambers is equipped with a wide screen that makes it easy for the public to see charts and other visuals displayed during council meetings. It also has equipment that eventually will allow for meetings to be recorded for broadcast and podcast, Marine said. The first meeting in the new space is tentatively planned for Jan. 12.
The ground floor also includes a meeting room available to the public and offices for the clerical staff, engineering and planning.
The top floor houses the mayor’s and city administrator’s offices, the finance and human resources departments, records and archives, and a large space that’s currently open but can be used for additional staff as the city grows.
“For now we can play basketball here,” Marine joked as he walked through.
Each floor has a small cafeteria. Overall, the building features high, slanted ceilings and a lot of natural light.
The move has been good for the staff, James said.
“There’s a lot of excitement,” he said. “The camaraderie, the team building that comes out of it is just amazing.”
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
Open house
An open house to inaugurate the new Mukilteo City Hall is scheduled for 3 to 7 p.m. Jan. 5.
For more information, call the city’s new phone number at 425-263-8000.
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