City of Bellingham, school district announce partnership for Civic Athletic Complex

Bellingham Public Schools and the city of Bellingham are considering a partnership to build a new school at the Civic Athletic Complex as part of a plan to expand indoor recreation, city and school district officials announced at their websites Thursday morning.

Few details were provided in the joint announcement, including a construction timeline, cost, where the new school would be built and what is being considered for the current site of Carl Cozier School.

“We still have details to work out, but we are currently exploring relocating Carl Cozier Elementary School and building a new Cozier on what is currently city property within the Civic Athletic Complex site,” Superintendent Greg Baker said.

Mayor Kim Lund said the cooperative agreement “has the potential of leveraging resources” that benefit both the city and the school district.

“While we are still in an exploration phase, we’re excited about the possibilities of this unique partnership,” Lund said. “Focusing on our shared investments in the Civic Athletic Complex has the potential to benefit families and public education, maximize recreational opportunities, advance climate resiliency, and provide other benefits that would serve the community now and into the future.”

Carl Cozier, which has students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, had an enrollment of 342 in the 2023-24 school year, according to the Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Built in 1951, the school is located at the busy commercial corner of Lakeway Drive and Lincoln Street. It’s on a list of three aging elementary schools that the district wants to replace.

Some 24,400 drivers use Lakeway Drive daily at Lincoln Street, according to a 2018 city traffic map. Another 6,200 drivers use Lincoln Street daily north of Lakeway, according to the same map.

Bellingham’s Civic Athletic Complex is the home of the Arne Hanna Aquatic Center; Joe Martin Field for baseball; Civic Stadium for soccer, football and track track and field; the Sportplex with an ice rink and indoor soccer fields; Frank Geri Fields for softball; and a skate park.

Nearby trails connect “Civic Field,” as the recreation complex is commonly called, to the citywide Greenways system.

Lund, who became mayor Jan. 1, was executive director of the Bellingham Public Schools Foundation, the district’s fundraising arm, from 2014 to 2022.

In her statement at the city’s website, Lund said that she and Baker signed a memorandum of agreement on Wednesday.

Transfer of Carl Cozier ownership to the city is planned by the end of by the end of 2029, according to that document.

Meanwhile, the agreement allows the school district to use Carl Cozier, or the new school that will be built at the Civic Athletic Complex, as a “swing school” for students at Columbia and Roosevelt elementary schools while their schools are being rebuilt.

Most recently, new buildings for Kushan Middle School and Sunnyland Elementary were built on land the district owns near the original buildings.

But there’s not enough open space for the district to use that strategy at Columbia and Roosevelt, Baker said in his message to families and staff.

Plans for a new elementary school in the growing King Mountain neighborhood of north Bellingham — temporarily called Elementary 15 — will be on hold for several years while the two other elementary schools are rebuilt.

A bond measure that voters passed in 2022 will provide funding for the new schools, Baker said.

While no specific proposal has been made for the current Carl Cozier School site, the city in 2018 began examining a partnership with the Whatcom Family YMCA to build a new gym and expand the pool facilities at Arne Hanna. That plan never materialized.