The Sequim Community School is one step closer to receiving its long-awaited facelift.
About 50 students, Sequim school district officials, school board and community members gathered on May 18 for a “capital project levy” groundbreaking ceremony at the Sequim Community School, as the district moves forward with building a new central kitchen and demolishing the unused portions of the school built in 1949.
“This is a historic moment for us as we plan for our present and future,” Sequim schools superintendent Gary Neal said at the ceremony.
The school has been vacant and unusable for the last six years as it was deemed unsafe for students in 2012. Clallam County voters approved the district’s capital projects levy in 2017 that will generate $5.75 million over three years (2018-2021) to fund a new kitchen and demolish the rest of the school to allow the district to apply for $4.1 million in state matching funds.
The district’s central kitchen will remain in use until the new one is ready to operate, which district officials say should be up and running by the start of the fall 2018-2019 school year.
Neal commended the Vanir Construction Management team for the work its done on the Community School and the kitchen so far.
“They have over-delivered and become a part of our community,” Neal said.
Bernie O’Donnell, Vanir’s northwest area development manager, said the the new kitchen will be state of the art and a “good use” of state matching funds by opening up more square footage for the district to claim in the future.
The kitchen is in its design phase of the project and Vanir officials said most of the construction will be focused on the west wing of the school where the new kitchen will be built and abatement of the rest of the building will follow, tentatively in November.
Olympic Peninsula Academy, which operates in the remaining usable portions of the Sequim Community School and houses about 100 students, will need to relocate during the demolition process. Neal said OPA will stay put for the remainder of the 2017-2018 school year, but the district is in the process of purchasing portables from Port Townsend School District to house OPA in the future.
