The city of Bonney Lake is one step closer to the downtown civic campus this week after authorizing the purchase of another piece of land on Sumner-Buckley Highway.

The council on July 19 unanimously authorized the purchase of the metal warehouse building at 18585 Sumner-Buckley Highway, next to the former Diamond Lunge, at a cost of $350,000. The money will come from the city’s Capital Improvement Project fund.

The land will be needed in the future to extend 186th Avenue through to Sumner-Buckley, as part of the city’s Downtown Plan.

“Some day, some council will be able to celebrate a road opening down there,” Deputy Mayor Dan Swatman joked before the vote.

City Administrator Don Morrison said the city has looked at the property before, but the asking price was too high. However, due to the difficult real estate market, the owners came back tot he city with a lower price and the council decided to make the move.

Morrison said while the property is needed for a road, that is a longterm plan and the building will be cleaned and used in the short term, though he said “We don’t know what form that will take.”

Discussion around the city focused on uses such as an expanded facility for the Food Bank or excess storage space.

Morrison said the city is now to about 80 percent of its goal in buying properties to build a civic campus, one of the anchors of the city’s Downtown plan.

Morrison said there are still three “critical” properties to be purchased, including two on Main Street near the Justice Center and a third on 98th Avenue East.

There is no time frame, however, on the purchase of the land or the building of a civic campus.

“Depending on what happens, it’s still a 10- to 20-year timeframe,” Morrison said. “We keep plugging away at it.”