City close to acquiring WSDOT parking lot at west end of town

After years of negotiating with the Washington State Department of Transportation to purchase the dirt parking lot at the west end of town, it appears now to be coming to fruition.
The city council discussed the matter at the May 8 study session. The current plan would have the WSDOT keep a portion of property for their needs, but sell the remainder to the city.
“When the WSDOT came to us, they had a couple options. The first option was just to purchase this part along the fence. The second option was to move the fence. We opted to move that fence,” said City Administrator Joel Walinski. “The way the fence is set up, the WSDOT would like us to put that out for bid and take care of the fence, then deduct a portion of the fence cost from the purchase price.”
The city has used the dirt lot for the past 25 years. Mainly big rigs, campers and RVs have parked there.
“The big rigs that have parked there. They don’t like that anymore. Once upon a time, the WSDOT, conscience of liability and the perception that is meant to be parking for big rigs. They changed their thinking, where they would rather have all their own area completely fenced and no outside parking,”said Mayor Cheri Kelley Farivar. “It is public use as their maintenance facility, but they do see a conflict there, so that is why there is a new fence line.”
Walinski said the bigger question is, what is the use here?
“This area does get a lot of use. Does the city have a responsibility to provide for big rig parking overnight? RV parking overnight?,” Walinski said. “Right now, a lot of this is being used as a park and ride, for both Stevens Pass and Link. Definitely on some of the bigger weekends, Oktoberfest and festival parking weekends, it does get packed. This is an overflow lot.”
The cost to the city for the property is $480,000 minus the cost of the fence. Councilman Jason Lundgren asked if there had been an appraisal to determine highest and best use for the property. Farivar said the appraisal was conducted and highest and best was parking, but it does not have to be used for that.
Lundgren said he was surprised the highest and best use for property fronting U.S. Highway 2 would be parking.
“Because it is municipal. It came to the state under a grant from railroad which requires it remain in public use,” Farivar said. “ I believe it will always be on the title. There is a reversionary clause probably. If you were to use it for something else, you would have to pay the railroad or give it back to them.”
Councilman Elmer Larsen said he doesn’t like the idea of RVs trying to squeeze in downtown or on outside streets.
“I think if we have something of this size, we should try to set something up for bigger rigs. There are people coming in with a boat trailer. Where do they go?,” Larsen said. “I think we have smaller rigs up front, then in the back with the bigger rigs, along with dump station for RVs.”
A dump station may not be possible, Farivar said.
“It could be serious expense. Coles Corner has one. KOA has one. You can use the dump station for a fee. Whether we do that would be a function of the cost versus the benefit,” Farivar said.
Councilwoman Mia Bretz asked if there were more specific plans after the sale. Walinski said it would be good to get the parking study completed because then they will have some parking strategies.
“Then, I also think it is important to see what Link does, because if you do have a shuttle option coming down the highway, that opens the door to this being used differently,” Walinski said. “Employees could park in here. Some downtown employees could park here using the shuttle. That changes things. I think there are two or three pieces to talk to you about. Maybe a shower building or laundry type stuff. Can a portion be set aside to have a private company come in and have a place for visitors?”
The property has been under city lease for about 25 years for $1 per year. It is just to provide parking, Farivar said.
“When we went to WSDOT to talk about purchasing the property about seven years ago, one of things they made clear, they see this as a parking lot. We said, we want to continue using it as a parking lot, but we want to improve it. We want pave it, line it, stripe it and have parking control,” Farivar said. “But in order to do that, we have to charge for parking, which we are not allowed to do now. Charging for parking on a WSDOT lot is not permitted. Those negotiations have been ongoing.”
The only thing the council has ever discussed this property was parking, she said.
 
“Whether it is parking for employees or RVs, we’ve never really nailed that down. When we had our city engineer, we had him draw a plan of what this might look like as a parking lot so we could determine how many spaces it would hold and ingress and egress,” Farivar said. “So we do have quite a bit of history on this parcel and it’s all parking.”
Larsen asked if the Port of Chelan County had been asked for assistance. Farivar said they wanted to get things nailed down first. She said when you go to the Port, they want some information about specificity and cost.
Since the Port is one of the partner in the parking study, Walinski said they will probably want the parking study finished. Councilwoman Sharon Waters said she would like the lot used for the bigger vehicles, so they don’t park at the pool parking lot.
“I would like to see us investigate cultural resources before we buy it. If we get money to develop it, it will probably be state or federal. I would hate to find out after we owned there could be no ground disturbance. That would really limit what we could do,” Lundgren said. “Before we spend a $500,000 on a property, seems like doing the cultural resource stuff up front. It’s not a huge expense, but it would be an insurance policy for us. That is my recommendation.”
A cultural resource study would be required if state or federal money were involved, but Walinski said they only place he could see getting money for this was the Port. Farivar said the state or federal money isn’t available for building parking lots.
“We’re going to be exploring a range of options. What if we build some sort of public facility there? Community center. I don’t want to jump to that conclusion. Historic preservation surveys are not that expensive,” Lundgren said.
Larsen said a community center shouldn’t be put on the highway.
“I’m not saying that is best idea for the site. I don’t want it to be a forgone conclusion about what we’re doing with the site when we haven’t gone through any real brainstorming,” Lundgren said.
Larsen said the city has been dealing with this for 25 years. Farivar said previous councils have spent countless hours brainstorming about this property, but not this council.
“As long as I’ve been with the council, this has been an issue. At first, we were looking at ways to get the logging trucks out of the neighborhoods. Since then, it has been let’s get RVs or rigs with trailers a place to park,” Larsen said.
The city wanted to improve the lot so it functions better as a parking lot and they only way to do that is to acquire it, Farivar said, so the city can charge fees, so the upgrade pays for itself.
If the site is being upgraded with public dollars, Lundgren felt getting cultural resources study is like inspecting a car before you buy it. Walinski said there have been cultural resource studies on Pine Street and Commercial Street which found nothing. The study costs about $7,000.
Even if an issue was found, Farivar said she would still buy it, saying this could be the best place for employee parking.
“I think the insurance concept. If we buy this for parking, then find out we could do more with it, then that’s a win. If we are able at some point, sell it to commercial development, that is a win. If nobody is able to really develop it and it stay parking, that is still a win,” said Councilwoman Mia Bretz. “I feel like no matter what a cultural resource study would say, I think in our hands, there is not really a loss.”
The property can never be sold for commercial development, Councilwoman Margaret Neighbors said.
“The WSDOT has looked at and figured the path of least risk for them is to say that public use
is sale to the city of Leavenworth. When the city gets to some point in time, the city attorney and city council will have to decide on the definition of public use and the definition of how stringent that is,” Walinski said.
“This is delivered to us by a quit claim deed not a statutory warranty deed. That is how municipalities transfer deeds back and forth to each other. That is frankly one of the reasons for the  price being as low as it is,” Farivar said. “They are divesting themselves of responsibility to the city of Leavenworth. That is really the bottom line.”
It is also possible the WSDOT moves their maintenance facility to their property at the Big Y, Larsen said, which would set the city up to buy the rest of the property.
“That is not far in the offing. It is being studied by the WSDOT, the consolidation of the maintenance facilities. They don’t move very fast. It is on the table and under discussion. Get us into position for first right of refusal,” Farivar said. “WSDOT always sells to the abutting property. That is the first option. We can always have the cultural study done, but we are on the five-yard line. We need proceed with the negotiation and purchase and then if you want to come in with cultural resource study, fine, but please don’t bring it up to the WSDOT.”
Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.