The North Beach School District Board of Directors unanimously passed a resolution at a special Wednesday evening meeting authorizing Superintendent Richard Zimmerman to acquire 17 acres in Pacific Beach at 50 1st Street North and 58 1st Street North for $6.4 million for the construction of a new Pacific Beach Elementary School campus.
The current school is located at 11 4th Street and serves 110 pre-K through 5th grade students.
The funding for the property purchase and school construction is allocated from the School Seismic Safety program, which was created by the Washington State Legislature in 2022, through the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Seismic Safety Program grant money has already paid for geotechnical and preliminary site planning studies of the property under consideration, which confirmed its suitability for construction of a school.
That measure “provides planning and construction grants to schools who have the option to relocate their schools located in the tsunami zones, make needed seismic retrofits, and build a vertical evacuation tower. Grant funding provided will pay for at least two-thirds of the total project costs which include both direct and indirect costs, including land acquisitions.”
Jeff Albertson, North Beach School District board president, says that the new campus will serve several needs.
“We’re excited to take this big step toward securing a safer future for the students, staff, and volunteers of Pacific Beach Elementary,” said Albertson. “We have the opportunity to build a new school that’s not only seismically sound and out of harm’s way, but also healthier, more modern, less costly to operate and maintain, and more conducive to focused learning.”
Albertson added that this property acquisition is part of a district-wide effort to protect students and faculty from the risks inherent with proximity to the ocean and the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
“We anticipate that the transaction will close during the first week in August,” said Albertson. “This acquisition would be an important step forward in our district-wide efforts to better shield our school communities from risks posed by earthquakes and tsunami inundation, which also include the construction of a vertical evacuation structure at Ocean Shores Elementary and addressing identified seismic risks at North Beach Junior/Senior High School.”
According to state law, “A school district or state tribal education compact school is eligible to receive a school seismic safety grant for remediation of seismic or tsunami hazards in qualifying buildings that meet the following criteria: the building is located within a high seismic hazard area … and the building was constructed before 1998 and has not received a seismic retrofit to 2005 seismic standards.”
The Taholah, Hoquiam and Aberdeen school districts have also received School Seismic Safety Grant Program money and are in various stages of design or property acquisition.
