TULALIP – Red ribbons, tied to the handles of gold shovels, whipped in the wind Friday as Tulalip tribal leaders scooped up dirt in a ceremonial groundbreaking for a $28 million tribal administration building.
It wasn’t the salt-saturated breeze they feel down on the shore of Tulalip Bay, where the current administration building stands. But through the trees there is still a glimpse of the water the tribe holds sacred.
“We never wanted to leave Tulalip Bay, but we knew we were going to continue to grow,” board of directors member Glen Gobin said. “We needed to still have that connection to the bay, if nothing else but a visible connection.”
The site is just a mud pit now, at the end of a gravel road that twists and turns and climbs east from Marine View Drive. But if the vision comes true, by August 2008, it will be the new home for tribal government, tribal construction head Mike Alva said.
By 2010, the tribes also expect to have a 2,000-seat gathering center – a second building erected nearby. A veterans memorial is planned to connect the administration building and the gathering center.
The tribes’ board of directors has met in a low-slung wood building since it was built in the early 1970s, tribal general manager Shelly Lacy said. The tribes’ 65 departments are spread out over five miles in offices that include old federal government buildings and cramped single-wide trailers.
The new building will measure nearly 75,000 square feet, with three stories and a sheer glass face that will welcome the sun as it sets over Tulalip Bay. The old building on the bay will become a youth center. Teens and children will use the tribal board’s chambers for their own youth council.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a real administration building,” said Mel Sheldon, the tribes’ current vice chairman, who will be sworn in as chairman next week.
“We’ve just kind of gotten by on what was there,” he said. “This is a new beginning for us.”
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
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