With an island-wide mailing campaign, media blitz, re-designed website and one-on-one donor solicitations, Orcas Recycling Services has launched the “Rebuild The Exchange” capital campaign.
ORS, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is looking to raise $593,000 in the coming months to pay for a new Exchange reuse facility, to take the place of the original Exchange, which burned to the ground in February 2013.
“Pete and the ORS board are doing a really incredible job running the transfer station, fixing the traffic flow problems, and getting a new Exchange built,” says Orcas County Councilman Rick Hughes. “I know Marlace and I will be among the first to support the fundraising effort.”
The capital campaign comes just as ORS is completing the extensive traffic flow improvement project mandated by the company’s contract with San Juan County. When complete, the traffic flow will be completely different on site, said ORS Executive Director Pete Moe.
“The county gave us two critical design requirements,” he said. “First, make sure cars don’t line up on the side of Orcas Road when it’s busy. Second, make sure cars don’t have to exit the site, circle back around, and enter the site again to pay. Our new traffic flow solves these problems, making it a much safer public facility.”
The new site design also took into consideration a new Exchange. When the traffic construction project is complete, there will be an engineered building site in place for the new reuse facility, with utilities in the ground. The road project also adds more than 30 parking spaces around the Exchange site.
ORS has largely footed the bill for the mandated traffic changes with revenue generated from the garbage and recycling it manages at the transfer station. San Juan County has also provided some funding through the “Public Facilities Financing Assistance Program” grant program.
“Now to pay for the building, we need the help of the community,” Moe said.
The project budget, as described on the ORS/Exchange website, calls for $240,000 for a wood pole and metal building with a small heated office or “annex” attached. The ORS design team created the building with input from several public forums over the past two years. There is $55,000 budgeted just for the foundation.
“Because we are close to a landfill, the foundation had to be specifically engineered to vent methane gas that could, conceivably, migrate up through the ground, and collect under the foundation,” Moe said.
The rest of the budget – $298,000 – covers everything from engineering and permits to plumbing and electric, to interior furnishings and contingencies.
“It sounds a little pricey,” says Moe. “But when you consider we are getting almost 6,500 square feet, finished, that’s like $90 per square foot. You can’t build anything on Orcas for that.”
To see drawings of the proposed building, go to www.exchangeorcas.org.
“ORS would like to thank everyone for your patience, your ideas, and your support so that we can reopen The Exchange as soon as possible,” said ORS Board President Tim Blanchard.
If the fundraising goes well, construction could begin in December. ORS is “optimistically” planning for a May 2016 opening.
ORS met with State Senator Kevin Ranker to discuss this project and other waste management issues on Nov. 10.
Ranker was pleased with the progress saying, “I, like the rest of the community, miss the Exchange. Not only because it was a community-driven opportunity to drop off and find wonderful items for our families, but because it allowed Islanders to share instead of waste.”
