SNOHOMISH — The gazebo at First Street and Avenue A may be refurbished soon thanks to a local company’s generous offer.
The owner of Nordic Home Solutions, a construction company on Union Avenue, is offering to pay for the materials and gather the volunteers to rebuild the gazebo.
The plan proposes using new recycled plastic decking and a new cedar shake roof.
The offer is to give back to the community.
“We want to make Snohomish smile again,” Nordic co-owner Palmer Bodin told the city’s design review board earlier this month, saying it is a “genuine desire to give back to the community that took me in” some 20 years ago as a newcomer.
He’s enthusiastic in getting started, and work might get going in the next few weeks, city economic development director Wendy Poischbeg said Friday, March 18.
The City Council last week added a stipulation halting the removal of three mature trees surrounding the gazebo.
“If the project includes tree removal, we need to take that off the table,” Councilwoman Donna Ray said.
On March 9, the city’s volunteer design review board approved a contingent plan that requires replacing the trees one-for-one.
The trees are proposed for removal because of their proximity to the gazebo, city project manager Brennan Collins told the design review board. One tree poses a maintenance and safety liability, he said.
The trees will eventually be replaced, Collins said.
Ray brought up the gazebo as a talking point at last week’s council meeting. In that discussion, council members said they want a landscape plan created, and also want some assurance the gazebo will be made ADA-accessible.
Ray and Councilwoman Lea Anne Burke were both adamant they don’t want the trees removed without further review.
Burke said established trees possess an ecological benefit equivalent to money for the city, and losing these trees must be subtracted from the value of the donation to build the gazebo.
“When talking about city assets, we do need to have the responsibility to look gift horses in the mouth,” Burke said.
The council requested that a closer look at the gazebo comes back on their meeting agenda soon.
An initial plan to build a new roof out of a 95%-recycled rubber roof material called Euroshield was nixed. Instead the replacement roof will use cedar shake.
The plans makes the gazebo’s underside more difficult to get into as well. People have broken slats to create a covered place to sleep, officials said.
The gazebo is currently built with wood and a shake roof. It was built in the 1980s and is now weathered.
