It’s like seeing a facelift in slow motion.
North Broadway is changing, bit by bit, as Everett Community College continues its admirable work to remake a section of one of the city’s busiest roads.
Crews are now erecting a new facility dedicated to EvCC’s nursing and health science programs. The $37.5 million building, scheduled to open in spring 2013, will take the place of the derelict old Royal Motor Inn, which sat at the corner of Broadway and 10th, and was torn down as part of construction efforts.
For too long, places like the Royal Motor Inn defined North Broadway. The road has needed help for years — a jumping off point to revitalize the five-lane throughway — and increasingly, it looks like EvCC is the leading candidate for the job.
The new science and nursing center isn’t the college’s only contribution to the road — far from it. A Student Fitness Center opened in 2011. The $19.5 million, 49,000-square-foot facility won accolades from the International Interior Design Center and American Institute of Architects.
All currently enrolled students have access to the fitness center’s cardio equipment, free weights and climbing wall. They can also jog around its track, which is suspended three stories above a basketball court equipped with retractable bleachers.
While the workout equipment is meant for students, the facility is used by a wide range of groups in the community. The Jet City Roller Girls hold their roller derby bouts there. Mars Hill Church uses it for Sunday worship services. Snohomish County recently co-hosted a roundtable on emergency preparedness on the basketball court floor.
Before the gymnasium, there was Whitehorse Hall, another of the college’s new facilities. Whitehorse, a $27 million facility, opened just off North Broadway in 2007. The 88,000-square-foot building provides classrooms for students of photography, design, chemistry, nutrition and more.
Despite these strides forward, the improvements on North Broadway still appear confined to EvCC’s campus — a bright spot surrounded by gray. At times, for drivers of the road, that gray may even overshadow the improvements.
South of the school, there are too many pockmarks — too many aging pubs and penny-ante motels, too much peeling paint.
North of the school, off of N. Broadway, environmental clean-up remains under way to scrub clean hazardous material such as arsenic and lead, left behind by the Asarco smelter. Those efforts began in 1999.
Clearly, change happens slowly, and can be for better or worse. While we can’t turn a blind eye to the old problems still apparent on North Broadway, we also can’t ignore the fact that the new additions by EvCC are for the good.
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