A new building at the Greenbank Farm is likely on hold for at least a couple of years.

Jim Patton, executive director for the Port of Coupeville, announced during last Wednesday’s commissioners meeting that the state Legislature didn’t provide any money to pay for a new, 10,000-square-foot building at the Greenbank Farm. The proposed building would have housed a permanent indoor location for the Greenbank farmers market, space for learning centers, office space, a value-added kitchen and public restrooms.

Patton said the new building would have cost an estimated $2 million.

Patton and Port Commissioner Marshall Bronson visited with state legislators in Olympia in March to lobby support for the Greenbank project, despite the huge budget shortfall state officials are trying to resolve.

“It was a very dim time to go down,” Bronson said, adding that the legislators were supportive of the project, there just wasn’t any money to fund it.

Patton said after the meeting that several organizations, such as the Economic Development Council the Northwest Agricultural Business Center and WSU Extension, expressed support for the project.

Without state funding, Patton said the port doesn’t have much recourse. He had hoped the state would have initially provided enough money to get the building designed and to pay for permits.

“We hoped to get enough to get started,” Patton said.

Port officials can still try to obtain state funding during the next biennium. There is precedent, as state money built the farm’s newest building as an economic development project.

In the meantime, Patton said the port will continue to add information to the project in hopes of fine-tuning plans. For example, he said one piece of information would describe how to make the new building as energy neutral as possible.