Covington officials are looking for the right partner to help make the city’s long-term vision for the town center element of downtown a reality.

Since the City Council adopted its downtown plan in 2009, staff and elected officials have worked on a number of elements covered in the plan, which included a concept with a city hall and town center park and plaza where Covington Elementary is currently located on Southeast Wax Road.

In the past six months, explained City Manager Derek Matheson, staff have explored particular funding aspects of a new city hall.

“At a budget study session last fall the council asked us whether we could use our current city hall lease payments to borrow money and build a city hall in the town center,” Matheson said. “So, we hired an architect who has done a number of city halls around the region to do a city hall feasibility study.”

A first draft of that study was presented to the council in February. Following that, Matheson said, council members asked for an update of the study with information included which assumed the city would lease out some of the space of a new city hall building to tenants who would later move out as the city staff grew into it.

That update was presented April 23 to the council.

“It showed that it would cost us in debt service about $1.3 million per year to build a new city hall and that’s after deducting rent we could get from potential tenants,” Matheson said. “Our current (lease) payment is $475,000 so that puts us about $800,000 per year short. The council recognized (at its April 23 meeting) that we aren’t in a position to build a city hall right now but they gave a couple of directions.”

The council collectively felt that the process to increase transportation revenue through a voter-approved sales tax increase — as recommended by the city’s Budget Priorities Committee report in late December — was an excellent one, Matheson said. Thus, the City Council wanted staff to use a similar process in the future to fund parks and recreation.

To that end, then, council directed staff to include facilities such as a new city hall and town center park in the funding mechanism for parks and recreation as that is developed in the future. Council also directed staff to consider creative partnerships with developers which could lead to a new building in which the city could lease space with an eye toward eventual ownership.

Getting creative in partnering with developers is another idea staff floated at the City Council summit in January, Matheson said, specifically with a new idea called the town center alternative process which they’re calling TCAP.

This idea first came up when staff compared what the city has done thus far with what it is doing with the Hawk property off Southeast 256th. Covington staff have worked with the current owners and YarrowBay, which is in the process of purchasing the property, on creating a vision for it which the developer will build out.

Matheson said that model could also work for town center. The City Council liked the idea in January when it was first suggested, but wanted to get some other elements in place before considering it further. At the April 23 meeting staff requested putting together a request for qualifications with the idea it would be put out some time this summer so a developer could be found to help work on a new city hall and the other elements of the vision for town center.

“As part of this town center alternative process the planning commission is working on an ordinance that would allow development agreements,” Matheson said. “Right now the town center has very specific zoning, what you can and can’t do, but in many ways the overall vision is more important than the specific zoning.”

As often happens with creative ideas, city staff aren’t sure if the TCAP idea will work.

“We don’t have money to bring to the table, but we do have other things like an interest to build a city hall and like the right of first offer on Covington Elementary,” Matheson said. “The main value of the new city hall study at this point is if a developer comes forward and wants to build office space in the town center and sign the city up as a tenant, we know exactly what space we need or if a public process to look at parks, recreation and facilities funding we know exactly what it would cost.”

Another factor is how the Kent School District will deal with the sale of the property. In 2012 the city of Covington negotiated for and won the right of first offer for the property. But there are other elements of the future of the land that are out of the city’s control. A partnership with a private developer could make Covington’s side of the deal go more smoothly.

“The school district property is shown in our town center plan as the location for city hall and town center park,” Matheson said. “We have the right of first offer to purchase the property but we don’t have the funds to purchase it so one of the reasons for this TCAP RFQ is to have a developer who could exercise the right of first offer on the city’s behalf.”

City officials are working with the legislature to get $50,000 to fund a town center study, which would determine how much tax revenue the town center concept could generate as well as how much the supporting infrastructure would cost. That information is what the city needs, Matheson said, to win federal and state grants to help pay for streets, parks and even city buildings.

Still, the city would need to find other cash streams to pay for the realization of its vision for town center.

“Grants and voter approved funding are going to be the primary way we build this,” Matheson said. “Our budget is just able to provide essential local government services, it’s not able to fund a large, ambitious vision to create a town center out of nothing.”