Bonney Lake officials and staff hosted a workshop Oct. 6 – but it wasn’t an ordinary meeting.

Mayor Neil Johnson, along with current and some former council members, broke ground during a ceremony at the site of the Interim Justice Center on Main Street.

“We figured it would be a perfect time to get everyone together to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Bonney Lake Interim Justice Center which has been a long time coming,” Johnson said.

The Interim Justice Center will be a 20,215 square-foot, three-story, mixed-use facility. It is being constructed as a retail/office building and will serve as the interim courthouse until the new civic center is constructed.

City Administrator Don Morrison said city officials and citizens have “long envisioned a downtown where they can meet and shop.”

Morrison noted that Bonney Lake was still a “fairly new city” as the city marked its 60th anniversary. He said Bonney Lake is a result of Pierce County’s urban sprawl.

“The city has grown rapidly over the past several years,” Morrison said. “We have never had a traditional downtown like many older cities have. Until the early 1970s, there wasn’t a shopping market here.”

Morrison said the city’s original downtown plan was called part of the Strategic Commercial District Plan with a proposed civic center district – a larger area than the current Downtown Plan.

He said it was initiated in the late 1990s by the Planning Commission and the final draft was prepared in 2001. Morrison stated the city re-created the plan in 2004 and in 2006 interim zoning was adopted.

Over the past six years, the city has spent $5.5 million on downtown and the civic center, Morrison said, mostly on land acquisition.

Morrison said the addition of retail centers along state Route 410 has brought shopping opportunities.

“Downtown Bonney Lake is envisioned to be the center of community life and local government services within easy access,” Morrison said. “We hope downtown will also be a place with shops, offices, restaurants and a vibrant pedestrian-oriented and friendly retail core.”

Morrison said City Hall was last remodeled in the 1970s when the population was 4,000 residents and the city had 40 employees. Today, there are 16,500 residents and 140 city employees.

Morrison said there is no room to expand or add an another annex to City Hall.

The post office, Public Safety Building and library currently make up the downtown area.

When completed in July 2010, the IJC will house municipal court, City Council chambers and selected city administration offices. Morrison said a portion of the building will be leased for retail and non-city office use.

The project is estimated to cost $3.9 million inclusive of off-site improvements, but exclusive of tenant improvements. Group Mackenzie is the architect for the project and M.J. Takisaki is the general contractor.

After the civic center is built, the IJC will be sold and revenue from the sale will be applied to the financing of the civic center, Morrison said.

He said the civic center could be built in five to 10 years.

Former council members Phil DeLeo and Cheryl Noble were on hand for the groundbreaking, along with some of the city staff.

“They played a large part in making this happen as part of the vision for the downtown plan and the needs of the court,” Johnson said.