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Crews arrived early Monday morning to begin the demolition of the building at the corner of 216th Street Southwest and Highway 99, most recently home to the Edmonds Value Village. According to the crew chief, the process should take the rest of this week.
“We plan to have it completely down by Friday,” he said.
Owned by the Verdant Health Commission, also known as Public Hospital District No. 2, Snohomish County, the property is being considered by South County Fire as a possible site for a new fire station. According to spokesperson Christie Veley, while South County Fire is “actively working with Hospital District 2 to purchase the property,” there are a number of details yet to be finalized, including the “results of a phase 3 environmental study.”
According to Verdant, the building was originally constructed in 1967. Verdant purchased it in 1995 and it has been vacant since 2020. Verdant Health Commission Board Member Jim Distelhorst said that Verdant saw the purchase as a strategic, health-focused investment near the hospital. Verdant is looking to keep options open for hospital campus expansion or compatible uses like a fire/emergency medical services station.
“It’s such a prime location at the junction of three cities [Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace],” Distelhorst said. If the property is acquired by South County Fire, it would be a “perfect fit” with Verdant’s overall mission to improve health and wellness, he added.
Distelhorst said that demolishing the building helps Verdant avoid the costs and risks of maintaining it.
“Even a vacant building has costs,” he said. “These include primarily utilities and security. There are also risk-related concerns such as vandalism, break-ins, potential squatting or drug use. While not direct line-item costs, demolishing the building now reduces Verdant’s expenses, risk exposure and management burden.”
The last two paragraphs of this article point out the ineptitude of the Verdant Comissioners in light of the fact that the building has been vacant for 5 years. Did the costs and risks just dawn on the brilliant minds?
Perhaps it got to a cost level that isn’t acceptable any longer. Especially since the cost of Demo has probably come down in the last year or two. I would agree with their reasoning.
Whats going to happen with existing south county fire station? Would rhis project cost another tax for residents?
i find this news piece to be a little odd; specifically – the quotes by Verdant and South County Fire are strangely vague. when i monitored the commissioner meetings at South County Fire i learned that there was agreement between these two government entities to sell the property with the intent to build another fire station on the site. but the due diligence proved there was contaminated soil on the site, and that made finalizing the environmental impact statement more complex. (and getting agreement on who pays for remediation.) i suggest the MEN readers monitor this plan to sell the property because the mayor and some members of city council are interested in relocating a significant number of Edmonds Police to this location. The plan the fire district and the city have discussed is that the new building would be big enough to lease space to the City of Edmonds. If the police dept. takes up less space in the city’s public safety complex, then the musical chairs can begin of moving employees out of city hall and assigning them a desk across the street, and lay the groundwork for selling or leasing City Hall. The City needs to do space planning. And wouldn’t it be nice if it was a transparent process that included public hearings.
Yes it would Theresa. I would think that just using it as a police station would be great for many reasons. Might not need to dig into that probably contaminated soil like you would to build a whole new Fire Station. Plus that is a great idea for our city to do this space planning. I like the idea of the public hearings there too. It would then serve all of Edmonds and parking would be easier too. A new fire station would cost a bunch to build from ground up. Edmonds I think supports Verdant a lot or I should say Edmonds Citizens seem to use their programs and such? I guess we will see won’t we. Hi Theresa hope you are doing well. Deb.