New Snohomish City Hall / PD campus designs shown, funding plan nearly done

SNOHOMISH — The city’s future Civic Campus, scheduled to be built at Third Street and Pine Avenue later this decade, will feature brick, masonry and exposed wood beams in all the buildings.
Consulting architects presented a first public look of detailed drawings last week. The campus will be the future consolidated home of City Hall, the Snohomish Police Department and Public Works.
Third Street will become a walking path that ends with an overlook of the Pilchuck River. The surrounding roads will be upgraded, too, and the power poles would be put underground.
The estimated pricetag? $72.7 million to design, build and implement the plan. Of that, about $20 million is in costs such as furnishings, taxes and fees.
The city so far secured a $700,000 state Department of Commerce grant which the city said covers design and permitting costs.
U.S. Sen. Suzan DelBene is asking for a $3 million federal capital earmark toward the project.
State Sen. John Lovick is asking for a state capital request of $8.5 million.
Successfully securing both would cover $11.5 million of the total.
City administrator Heather Thomas-Murphy plans to lay out the full recommended funding plan at the Feb. 18 City Council meeting.
A preliminary funding plan discussed in October suggested taking out long-term municipal bonds to fund about half of the cost and using low-interest loans and grants for about another 30% of the cost. The city has $40 million in bond capacity, Thomas-Murphy said.
It also intends to sell the current City Hall at 116 Union Ave. after it moves into the Civic Campus, plus sell perhaps five other properties such as the former visitor’s center at First Street and Avenue D. Those sales could raise $3.85 million or more in estimates presented by the city.
Lovick said that “we are facing a difficult budget year, but there is nothing more important than keeping people safe and making them feel safe. That is why I am focusing on ‘smart-funding’ projects like the Snohomish Public Safety and City Services Campus, where we make targeted investments that do the most good for the most people.”
Creating a Public Safety and Civic Campus is a collaborative plan between Fire District 4 and the city to use the block that formerly had historic residences and Steuber’s Distributing Co.
The city used $3.6 million in reserves to buy its land from Fire District 4, which obtained the block in 2023.
Fire District 4 plans to begin constructing its new fire headquarters at Fourth and Pine this year. The Pine Avenue station is being built with all cash on hand.
It’s publicized a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday, March 29 at the site.
The city plans to go to bid for construction in 2026, and have the building finished in late 2027, its consulting architects said.
The three-floor, 40,500-square- foot City Hall would have a front-desk lobby and a new City Council chambers on the first floor. The second floor would include the Mayor’s Office and City Administrator’s Office, as well as the planning department and others. The third floor would house Public Works.
The Police Department would be in the same physical building but be separated.
The building would be up against the sidewalk with 60 spaces of parking in the back, including eight EV charging stations as a starting point.
The city is making this move because it’s “maxed out for space” at the current city hall, Thomas-Murphy said. The computer servers and IT department are in the basement. It was once a post office.
The city’s engineering department is situated in a different building next door.
The big push, though, is related to relocating a trailer that houses staff at the public works shop along the Snohomish River. The city must relocate the trailer by April 2027 under a city hearing examiner’s 2009 order. The hearing examiner approved the shop building on west First Street along the river on the condition it be removed within 18 years.