City council briefs...

Peace Portal Drive demolition stalled

The City of Blaine has been working toward demolishing a building at 665 Peace Portal Drive for more than a year and it just hit another delay.

The city found the building, formerly occupied by Costa Azul, to be pest-ridden, structurally unsound and in decay early last year.

The only bid for demolishing the building that came in by the February 2018 deadline was from Wrecking Ball Demolition for the amount of $406,361.79. City of Blaine staff recommended that the council reject the bid “due to the high cost and the approach required to tear down the building,” said building official Tim Woodward.

The council voted 6–0 to reject the bid at its May 14 meeting.

The building shares structural supports with two other properties directly north. Wrecking Ball’s approach involved stabilizing supporting walls of the other properties, making the job more costly. The city has requested that the owners of the affected properties stabilize the shared supports at their own expense. The city plans to re-bid the project once that’s complete.

“Based on talks with our consultant we believe the next round of bids will come in significantly less,” Woodward said.

Update to street vacation ordinance

City council unanimously passed an update to the city’s street vacation code, which is the process for transferring public right-of-way to a private owner.

The vacation process can be started when the owners of more than two-thirds of the property abutting the street or alley to be vacated petition to have the right-of-way vacated.

The city’s updated code requires that a public hearing follow a petition for vacation. The city previously did hold public hearings about street vacation, said public works director Ravyn Whitewolf, but now it’s officially in the code.

“Before it was really undefined. This takes the ambiguity out of it,” she said. City council can also initiate a street vacation.ƒ

Bid award for Loomis loop electrical work

The Loomis Trail Golf Course development is especially susceptible to power outages, but that could change soon. The city council awarded a $235,226 bid to Sail Electric of Bellingham to install new underground cable that will make electrical infrastructure in that area redundant.

The bid was more than the city’s estimate of $196,343 for the project, but Sail Electric was the lowest of four bidders.