WWU explores funding options for waterfront

Private developer may be cheapest

JOHN STARK

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BELLINGHAM — Western Washington University’s new waterfront facilities could be up and running by the third quarter of 2012, but that could mean using nontraditional means to build and pay for those facilities.

The university envisions a new waterfront home for Huxley College of the Environment and other programs on perhaps 12 acres of land along an extension of Laurel Street to the edge of the bay. The land, formerly part of Georgia-Pacific Corp.’s pulp and paper mill, is owned by the Port of Bellingham.

At a Tuesday public forum on WWU’s waterfront plans, university consultant Doug Graham said the simplest route — state capital budget appropriations to pay for land and buildings — might also be the most time-consuming. The planning and budgeting process at the state level is slow under the best of circumstances, and completion of new facilities under that scenario would not be likely before 2016, Graham said.

Graham also noted that there is no guarantee that the Legislature would agree to full funding of WWU’s plans within that timeframe, given other budget pressures.

Before the meeting, WWU Vice President Robert Frazier said the university had asked the Legislature for $6.3 million for the 12 acres of waterfront land purchase, but that request didn’t make the budget cut in the current session.

While Frazier said it is likely the university will revive that request next year, the university also is exploring other scenarios.

Perhaps the cheapest: allowing a private developer to build facilities for WWU as part of a larger commercial development. In this scenario, Graham said, WWU would be a tenant and might get an attractive lease deal if the developer believed WWU’s presence would add value to the rest of a project.

But that scenario also gives the university less control, and would mean that university facilities would be affected by the developer’s need for a profit, Graham said.

An alternative, Graham said, would be for WWU to join other public agencies to create a development authority that would develop other public parks or buildings in addition to the university’s portion. Such an authority could contract with private developers to build. Legislators might be more favorably disposed to that approach if it meant that other agencies would help with the costs, he said.

Graham’s estimate of 2012 as the earliest date to complete WWU facilities was based on the assumption that the city gets streets, bridges and utilities in place on the site by the end of 2010 — an assumption he labeled “aggressive.”

University President Karen Morse said no decisions have been made yet on what funding strategy to pursue. She expects to make a recommendation to trustees after hearing opinions from the university community.

Huxley associate professor John McLaughlin urged administrators Tuesday to make sure Huxley’s new waterfront campus is readily accessible to pedestrians, cyclists and bus riders who will need to get back and forth to the main campus.

McLaughlin said Huxley faculty members agree their existing facilities are unsatisfactory, but have questions about environmental cleanup, earthquake safety and transportation issues on the waterfront.

“I’ve noticed a striking ambivalence among my colleagues,” McLaughlin said. “We certainly don’t want to jump to something that is worse.”

Morse said transportation and other issues would be resolved before a move is made.

“We are not interested in coming down unless this is going to be a green development,” Morse said.