WHIDBEY ISLAND — Camp Casey, a former U.S. Army fort turned campground and conference center, is changing hands for the first time in over 70 years.
Seattle Pacific University, the current owner, is selling the 84-acre property and its facilities to the YMCA of Snohomish County. The YMCA will take over operations at the start of next year.
The terms of the sale were not made public. Island County records show the appraised value of the properties totals about $15 million.
The camp was first built at the turn of the 20th century. The Army used it through World War II before the military decommissioned it in the 1950s. In 1956, the university purchased the property.
Seattle Pacific, a Christian university based in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle, used the site for conferences, field trips, classes as well as staff and student retreats. The university also allowed local organizations to host camps or retreats there. The property was unique for the university, as its only other off-campus facility is a research station on Blakely Island, closed to the public.
Kim Sawers, the special assistant to the university president for property transactions, called the sale “bittersweet,” but felt the YMCA will take good care of the property.
“The YMCA of Snohomish County shares a lot of our values about education, character development, youth development, community involvement,” Sawers said. “They’re going to utilize it more fully than we may have been able to in the past, and they’re going to steward it in ways we haven’t been able to in a while. We’ve been good stewards of the place, but they’re going to take it to that next level, and that’s what we care about.”
Seattle Pacific had considered selling the camp for years, citing the requirements to care for the property and the university’s focus on its main campus in Seattle. The institution hoped to find a buyer that could continue to operate the facility as a campground and conference center.
“With all of the historical preservation, environmental overlays, it wasn’t a place that could be redeveloped into something else,” Sawers said.
For years, the YMCA of Snohomish County did not operate overnight camps — unusual for a YMCA of this size, President and CEO Peyton Tune said Thursday. That changed three years ago when the YMCA opened a yearly overnight summer camp using rented space. Now, the Y will have a permanent site to operate camps.
“For many of the people in central and south Whidbey, this will begin to feel like their YMCA,” Tune said. “This location will begin to provide all of those programs and services that we typically think of as existing within the four walls of a YMCA.”
Fees for overnight camp programs at Camp Casey will range from $500 for two-night sessions to $990 for five-night sessions. YMCA members get a $75 discount. Tune estimates over 1,000 children will take part in next summer’s overnight camp program.
The swimming pool at the camp, decommissioned by the university following the COVID-19 pandemic, will be refurbished and reopened in the summer, the YMCA said. The nonprofit hopes to build a new aquatic facility at Camp Casey in the coming years.
Staff at Camp Casey, currently employed by the university, will become YMCA employees. No one will be laid off, Tune noted. Organizations like churches, affinity groups and sports teams that previously used the conference center facilities can continue to do so.
The parties will officially close on the transaction in November. The university said proceeds from the sale will go toward reinvestment on its main campus.
Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
