The former home for the Ridgefield Police Department will be demolished to serve as parking while a cleanup of contaminated areas nearby commences.
During its Oct. 12 meeting, the Ridgefield City Council voted unanimously to direct city staff to move forward with demolishing the old 1,300-square-foot station at 116 N. Main Ave. along with a nearby shed. The building footprint will be filled in with gravel, but the nearby jail will remain as the city considers future uses for the property.
The city has been considering the fate of the building throughout this year. Earlier this year, the Ridgefield Police Department moved out of its old facilities into its new location in the lower portion of “The Bluffs,” a new 15,000-square-foot building on West Division Street that features the Port of Ridgefield and other tenants. Since then, the department’s old home has remained vacant.
Since then, the city’s ownership of the old station and its parking lot have come into question. City staff came before the council in July about future possibilities of the site, Ridgefield Finance Director Kirk Johnson said.
At that point, leasing the building and parking lot out were under consideration. The council rejected that idea, instead directing staff to look at demolition of all buildings on the site and turning the property into more parking for the downtown area. Another option was to sell the property outright.
Johnson said the county’s assessed value for the building is $321,657: the appraised value just on the building itself from the city’s insurance company is $427,000. The parking lot is assessed at 125,957.
Johnson said estimates on demolition and paving of the properties came in at about the same at $50,000 apiece. He added that gravel could be put in on the footprint of the existing building for less on a temporary basis.
Johnson said there was a building on the site prior to 1950, on what foundation the current structure was built. From what information the city staff found from county records, the old building was demolished and what currently exists was completely rebuilt around 2000.
In that history, the “jail” that now exists behind the old station is relatively new, and holding cells for the city were on the south side of the road until relatively recently, based on the planning data city staff was able to dig up.
The decision to demolish comes while property to the north undergoes environmental cleanup. Currently, that property is subject to a “consent decree” from the Washington State Department of Ecology for excavation and purification of the water table from the former site of a laundry facility.
Ridgefield Mayor Pro-tem Rob Aichele considered saving the jail, which hasn’t been functional for decades and mostly serves as an attraction during city events.
“Eventually we want to do something cool with the alley, and the jail wouldn’t take up that much real estate,” Aichele said.
Mayor Jennifer Lindsay agreed with saving the jail.
“It’s not necessarily historic when you go back 100 years, but it’s never going to be historic if we don’t make a priority now to save it,” Lindsay said.
Councilor Ron Onslow was less enthused about keeping the jail, given its relative “non-history” compared with other historical buildings.
“I don’t think you should save it. I think you should save everything inside of it,” Onslow said.
While the current parking lot is undergoing environmental recovery, Onslow felt turning the old police station site into a lot would mitigate the impact from a lack of parking.
“I think that we should tear the building down, and decide what to do with it at a later date,” Onslow said.
In terms of size, Ridgefield City Manager Steve Stuart said the land in question would be about the same as what currently exists as parking to the north of the properties. Though there had been some interest in buying the property initially, Stuart didn’t believe any of the inquiries would have led to a purchase.
“The only reason being is that there wasn’t anything of substance to offer at that point,” Stuart said.
Councilor Judy Chipman believed having more parking was important for the city.
“One of the things that we hear the most from people who live [here] is we need more parking downtown,” Chipman said.
