PORT ANGELES — City officials are studying the idea of selling the City Light building to Family Medicine of Port Angeles and relocating the city’s electric utility to an as-yet undetermined location.
City Manager Mark Madsen and Dr. Bill Hennessey presented the idea to the city’s Utility Advisory Committee at its Tuesday meeting, where it received a cautious endorsement pending more information.
“It’s a great opportunity for downtown but it’s a financial decision. The benefits are more than just the money, but I’d like to see the nuts and bolts of it,” said City Councilman Grant Munro.
Madsen said he was presenting the idea to the committee because it affected the city’s electric utility.
Study ready in January
Gentry Architecture is conducting a “space needs study” of the city’s electric utility that could be finished by early January, said City Public Works Director Glenn Cutler.
No size, shape or cost for a new building will be available until early January, he said.
The city’s electric utility has 16 people and 10 pieces of indoor equipment.
Madsen said the building was declared surplus by the City Council in 1987, so it is available for sale.
The space needs study is being conducted because the electric utility isn’t using all of the present building, Madsen said.
So it doesn’t make sense to just replicate the building somewhere else, he said.
Benefit clinic
Dr. Bill Hennessey of Family Medicine of Port Angeles said the proposed relocation would benefit not just the clinic but the city and Olympic Medical Center.
“We need to grow. We are growing. We want to be back together again under one roof,” Hennessey said.
The move also would reintegrate the clinic into the city, especially the downtown, Hennessey said.