Auburn’s professional center is hub of city emergency operations, home to others

Published 10:42 am Thursday, February 25, 2010

Fitted out with television, computers, radio and telephones, the City of Auburn’s new Emergency Operations Center on the second floor of the One Main Street Professional Center offers a seat at the table to each entity involved in handling emergencies, from police and fire to public works and planning.

Separated by glass in an adjoining room, the Auburn City Council can meet at a moment’s notice to pass emergency legislation.

Down the hall and around the corner is the new home for the departments of Planning, Public Works, and Finance. Transportation planners can look up at computer screens and monitor live video feeds of all the major intersections, spotting problems as they occur.

On the third floor is the Emergency Management Office.

Tuesday evening, dignitaries cut the ribbon on the three-story, 89,000-square-foot building east of Auburn City Hall, capping more than a year of construction. It offers space for dental, professional offices and ground-floor retail.

Valley Women’s Health Care was the first to move into the 5,500-square-foot suite at 1 E. Main on the northwest corner of the building Dec. 18. KeyBank will occupy the southeast corner of the building.

Developer Jeff Oliphant, president of JLO Washington Enterprises, stood on the stairwell and told the crowd gathered in the lobby how unusual it is in this economic climate to have a major construction project happening downtown.

“In the economic crunch we were in, no banks were loaning money, particularly on real estate and new construction,” Oliphant said.

Then he thanked Interwest Mortgage and Sterling Savings for financing the building.

Oliphant praised the partnership with the City that allowed the building to rise on a block known for generations mainly as the site of run-down taverns.

“This building really is a major step forward in the redevelopment of downtown Auburn, and what the city can do working together,” Oliphant said. “It took tremendous teamwork, and we’re very proud to achieve this milestone today.”

Oliphant estimated that the construction created roughly 300 jobs directly, but added that that works out to 2,000 actual jobs, considering all the money spent in the community because of it. Sierra Construction Company was the main contractor.

One Main Street, said Mayor Pete Lewis, is among the first fruits of a long-term downtown redevelopment plan the City Council adopted in 2001 that allowed the City, Auburn Regional Medical Center, the Auburn School District, the Auburn Downtown Association, the Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce and ordinary citizens a say in how they wanted their downtown to look. Among the other projects are the new parking garage north of City Hall and the Promenade project, a major rebuild of South Division Street that is slated to start this year.

Lewis said Oliphant was able to launch his One Main Street project when the economy was changing and other building projects throughout the region had ground to a halt.

Lewis said that the Auburn City Council worked for five years to buy 14 different parcels in the blocks surrounding City Hall in accordance with that 2001 plan. By way of comparison, he said, the City of Kent was able to buy 20 acres to begin the Kent Station in one transaction, and Renton was able to buy in a single transaction more than 65 acres to move forward with The Landing.

Lewis said that the whole point of revitalization is to relieve the taxpayers of the property tax burden by bringing up the income of the city, thereby increasing the property tax and sales tax from a newly revitalized downtown.

“The other day someone talked to me about the downtown and said they wanted something more concrete before they would believe that we were moving forward,” Lewis said.

He smacked the stairwell with his open hand.

“That’s concrete. That’s revitalization. That’s our effort to show that we are working,” Lewis said.