After several years of planning and 18 months of construction, workers from the city of Bonney Lake this week finally began moving into the city’s new building on Main Street in the Downtown core.
Now formally known as the Justice Center (The “Interim” was dropped form the title late last year), the building will house members of the executive department, community services and the municipal court, including a new courtroom/council chamber.
“Everybody’s very excited,” Community Development Director John Vodopich said, as workers rushed to finish up and boxes containing court documents began to be loaded in.
The three-story, 22,000-square-foot building will be mostly empty, even after the staff moves in as the city searches for tenants for what was designed as a mixed-use facility containing retail and office space, as well as city employees, who would be housed there until a new city hall could be built, estimated to be about 15 years.
The planned addition of retail space would help pay down the $650,000 per year debt service on the bonds for the $4.2 million building as well as act as an example of the type of development the city is hoping to attract to the Downtown: Pedestrian-friendly retail on the first floor, office space upstairs.
Earlier this year, the city council decided against an arrangement that would have brought the investment company Edward Jones to the building because the nature of their business was not the right fit for the city’s plans.
The city is now considering taking over the entire building to help alleviate space pressures at city hall and the city hall annex. Since the current city hall was built in the 1970s, Bonney Lake has grown from a population of approximately 4,000 to the current size of about 17,000. With that, the number of city employees has risen from 40 to 134.
This week, however, just the initial group of employees will be moving in, but it should be enough to open things up at city hall a little bit.
For the court in particular, the new space at the Justice Center will be a new era. At city hall, there is room for a single court clerk at the desk and the remaining staff is crammed in behind.
At the Justice Center, there is room for two employees to sit behind a large, new counter with room for all the clerks and even room for expansion as the city grows.
There are also new offices with frosted glass walls and lots of natural light for the court clerk and municipal judge.
Meanwhile, the new courtroom/council chambers contains several new features aimed at safety. First, a holding cell, complete with a meeting room for lawyers, was added to the back of the room with its own entrance, preventing those facing trial from having to come in through the main doors.
The city’s executive department will be housed on half of the second floor of the building. New offices for the city administrator, mayor, executive assistant and community services director – all larger than their current offices at city hall – all await their occupants.
In total, 10 employees are moving to the new building.
The third floor, which features a small rooftop garden area, is also awaiting a tenant.
Though employees are moving in, the courtroom is not expected to be open for about a month, due to some delays on lighting fixtures and other minor issues. Until then, cases will continue to be heard at city hall.
Vodopich said a formal opening is planned for May, but the first official public event at the Justice Center will be an April 28 Pierce Transit open house, followed by the May 3 city council workshop.
