SNOHOMISH — On Friday, Sept. 27, the community can come together at Averill Field, at Third and Pine, to celebrate the future home of the Snohomish Public Safety and Civic Campus and learn about the plans for the new fire station, police station and City Hall. The event will have games, live music and hot dogs courtesy of the police and fire departments.
The campus will be along Pine Avenue between Third and Fourth streets.
Snohomish City Director of Community Engagement and Strategic Initiatives Shari Ireton said the event has been in the works since last spring.
“The whole genesis behind this event was to find an engaging way to bring the community in to learn more about the city campus,” Ireton said. “We did not feel like a town hall would have been really as engaging or as inviting to the community.”
Over the past five years, the City of Snohomish has been looking for property to move their facilities to one area, making it easier for the community to access services, as well as take care of a need for more space. After deciding to partner with Snohomish Fire District 4, combining projects between the two agencies, it is projected that the entire campus will be complete by the end of 2027.
The city anticipates constructing the new 42,000-square-foot city hall-police department during 2026 and 2027, the city’s consulting architects said at the Sept. 3 City Council meeting. It would be at the southwest corner of the block of Pine between Third and Fourth streets.
The fire station would be on the northwest corner of the block, 22,000-square-feet in size, with five bays facing Pine Avenue. It will take over fire coverage for the Maple Avenue station. The Maple Avenue station will become a reserve building.
Snohomish City Administrator Heather Thomas said that the city staff are currently in buildings that are outdated, no longer ADA compliant, and simply do not have the space to accommodate employees.
“Right now the city has staff spread out across five different locations. Our police department is in an old 1980s bank, and the city hall is the old post office,” Thomas said. “We are maxed out for space.”
Snohomish Fire District 4 has a similar issue of space and outdated facilities, according to Fire Chief Don Waller.
“We ran out of space,” Waller said. “The space that we did have was not built for full time firefighters or for modern facilities. As we grow, we need to have infrastructure that supports the expectation of the service level of the citizens.”
The event is meant to be a fun gathering but also informational, giving community members a chance to voice their opinions, look over site plans of the campus, and ask questions to the architects who will be attending. Mayor Linda Redmon, Chief Waller, and a representative from the police department will all be speaking at the event, letting attendees know where each of their agencies are at in the process.
“Even though we are completely different agencies, to be co-located in a convenient spot helps our citizens be able to access services,” Chief Waller said.
The celebration will take place at Averill Field from 4 - 7 p.m. with live music performed by Jerry and Jeff Battista and Rolf DeDamm.
