MUKILTEO — Construction is scheduled to begin here next month on the new home of a Boys &Girls Club, a $5 million building set to open in the fall of 2018.
The club will be built on a 13-acre site at 10600 47th Place W. in the Harbour Pointe community.
The building will be named The Shin Center in honor of former State Sen. Paull Shin, who served for 15 years in the Washington state Senate.
About half of the property is buildable, with room for sports fields. The rest is wetlands.
It’s close to Kamiak High School, an elementary and middle school, and just a few blocks off Harbour Pointe Boulevard, said Bill Tsoukalas, executive director of the Boys &Girls Club of Snohomish County.
“It’s a great location,” he said. The planned 18,000-square-foot building will have a gym, computer lab, and a multi-purpose room. There’s space to add a second gym in the future.
The current 5,000-square-foot building at 1134 2nd St. in Old Town opened in 1961. It’s in need of costly repairs and considered too small to meet the needs of the more than 1,400 youths who use it.
Issuing bids and selecting a contractor to build the new club is expected to take the rest of this month, Tsoukalas said.
“Whoever we select has to gear up and be ready to go,” with work expected to begin in early June, he said.
Local young people will have a more accessible facility, generally closer to their homes and schools, with space to serve the growing number of kids expected to use it, Tsoukalas said.
Money for the project included two state grants totaling $2.2 million; $1.275 million from Snohomish County for playfields; $500,000 from the city of Mukilteo; and private donations.
The 13 acres on which the new Boys and Girls Club branch will be built was previously owned by the state Department of Natural Resources, which released the property to the city of Mukilteo.
Eventually, the city will have to decide whether to sell the existing Boys and Girls Club building in Old Town and the property on which it’s built or have the city continue to own the property.
The City Council is scheduled to discuss its options July 10. It could cost $250,000 to $500,000 to renovate the building, said Mukilteo Mayor Jennifer Gregerson.
It could be used for a senior center, or as a satellite police precinct to have a presence in Old Town, she said.
Sharon Salyer; 425-339-3486;salyer@ heraldnet.com
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