in other words
The New WOEC HQ Building: The Complete Story
By Marc Farmer
General Manager, WOEC
flood.
West
Oregon
Electric
Cooperative
(WOEC)
has
just
completed, dedicated, and relocated to
the our new headquarters facility and I
thought it would be helpful to provide
our members with a comprehensive
review on the process from beginning
to end so that all members will have the
complete story about our new facility.
The process of building a new
headquarters facility really started back
in 1996 after the first flood event. Our
old building, constructed in 1956, was
inundated with 3 feet of water. At that
time the General Manager, Russell
Green, informed the Board that a new
building would need to be constructed
within the next 10 years. The reasons
for the new building then remained
true in 2007 as the Board had decided
to move forward with the purchase of
land to construct a new facility. The
reasons included: the old building being
in the flood plain, we had outgrown the
building, wiring was old and needed to
be replaced as it could not handle the
power needs of all today’s electronics,
(we actually had smoke and sparks
coming from our electric panel from
the overload), our plumbing needed to
be replaced, the facility was not energy
or space efficient, and another safety
issue came from an engineering study
that declared the building unsafe from
seismic events. The building was not
designed back in 1956 to meet seismic
codes, and if an event took place this side
of Seattle it would bring the building
down upon us. This was only added to
by the almost 4 feet of water in the 2007
In the month prior to the
December 3rd flood of 2007, the Co-op
had put down escrow funds to purchase
7 acres on Mist Drive. When looking at
the property immediately after the flood,
it was plainly clear that we should not
proceed with the purchase as the front
half of the property was flooded. We
would have moved from one flood plain
to another, and so we made the wise
choice to not proceed with that purchase.
The decision was made to conduct three
separate searches for the location of the
new facility. I conducted the first search
with the help of Vernonia Realty. The
second study was done by Steele and
Associates from Bend, and the third
by a certified commercial realtor from
Portland. Each independent study came
up with the same conclusion that the
best location for the new facility was the
Gordon Smith property on the corner of
Rose Avenue and Maple Street.
To make sure the construction
of a new facility met with the approval
of the membership of the Co-op, a
member survey was conducted. The
response was not only statistically valid
in the number of members responding,
12%, it was also very evenly balanced
from each of the seven Board Districts.
The message was clear from those
responding as 81% responded that they
would be willing to pay $3 or less per
month for a new headquarters facility.
This strengthened the resolve to proceed
to build.
The first question people ask
is why we did not use the property the
Co-op owns where the pole yard is
currently located. This property was
included in each of the three searches
but was determined to not be practical
for three major reasons: the first being
that the access road to the property was
completely impassable during flood
events making is impossible to get to or
from the building. To build an access
road out of the flood plain to the property
would have cost over $1 million. This
brings us to the second major reason that
because the property was out of the city
limits, there were no sewer, water, and
telephone facilities to the site. Adding
the extension costs of these to the road
access meant that even before we began
any site prep work for construction we
would have to spend almost $2 million
just to have proper infrastructure in
place. It was significantly cheaper to
purchase property with the infrastructure
already available.
The downturn in the economy
then came upon us and the Board of
Directors decided that now was not the
time to begin construction of a new
facility. About 6 weeks after this decision,
West Oregon was notified by FEMA,
Oregon Emergency Management, and
the City of Vernonia that this was not
an option. As an essential service
with more than 80% damage to our
facility, we had to relocate within three
years or jeopardize receiving future
FEMA funding for future flood events
if we chose to purposely remain in an
identified flood plain. The Board had no
choice but to proceed with the purchase
continued on page 12
october25
2011
Publisher and Managing Editor
Scott Laird
503-367-0098
scott@vernoniasvoice.com
Contributors
Chip Bubl
Megan Ely
Marc Farmer
Jill Hult
Karen Miller
Photography
Mike Easlon
Eyrrick Family
Jill Hult
Scott Laird
Doren Lower
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