City Council moves forward to purchase temporary building for Icicle Station

During the winter, it can get pretty chilly waiting for the train to arrive at Leavenworth's Icicle Station. After all, there is not much to shelter you from the wind, rain and snow. It has always been part of plan to build a permanent structure at the site, but the cost to build anything permanent is prohibitive, more than $1 million.

So, in the meantime, the Leavenworth City Council is pressing forward to locate a temporary building on the site as soon as December.

"It is a temporary building. Right now, the city does not have the money to do the track improvements, which is about $750,000, and then build the permanent building, which is probably another $600,000," said Joel Walinski, Leavenworth city administrator, at the Oct. 9 city council meeting. "We are looking for grant money to do that."

The building is 26-by-12 feet with a porch. It will be heated and lighted. The city would maintain it. Walinski said it would give train passengers somewhere to wait, out of the weather, with a little bit of heat, 45-50 degrees.

"One of the complaints we've heard from the folks that run hotels is that people, because of the issues with the train schedule, are getting dropped off at odd times," he said. "Sometimes, they are waiting three or four hours instead of 15 minutes."

Walinski was looking for council approval so they could move forward with a purchase of the building, to get it installed and operational for the upcoming winter season. The cost for the prefabricated building is $22,500, with the possibility of paying over three years, he said. It is estimated it will cost another $2,000 to $5,000 to add Bavarian style to the building.

Bavarian Lodge owner Lyman Boyd did some research into the building. He said the base building comes with a patio, steel roof, eaves, electrical and heating. The city would be responsible for preparing the foundation and the hooking up the electrical.

"There are a couple things we can do to achieve Bavarianization," Boyd said. "I can go back to them (prefab company). Look at examples. Come up with how that could be done and get a new price with many, if not all those things added. The other way is to get the base unit, then we would add the Bavarian styling after it arrived. It might even be cheaper. This means we would still have to buy the materials to get the work accomplished."

Boyd said it takes about 30 days for the building to be prepared and delivered. He figures it will take at least that long to prepare the site at the train station, get the deck built, and create access to it.

"If we want to try and get this in place before Dec. 1, we still have that opportunity but we have to move fairly quickly," he said.

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.