Burst pipes latest reminder of neglect at Old City Hall
Could Old City Hall be the next Luzon?
That is, could a well-meaning but overwhelmed owner allow an iconic historic structure to waste away from the inside out until demolition is the easiest solution?
That’s what happened just over a year ago to the Luzon Building at 13th and Pacific. It led to hand-wringing among preservationists and a pledge by the city to do better next time.
City Councilman David Boe has been trying to sound the alarm about Old City Hall for over a year. An architect, he keeps his office kitty corner from the 117-year old Italian Renaissance tower. That has given him a daily impression of the condition inside.
“Ripped canopies, boarded-up windows, birds living inside, which implies other things living inside,” Boe said.
But his warnings were mostly ignored until Wednesday. That’s when sprinkler pipes damaged by freezing temperatures burst, flooding the building with 30,000 gallons of water, soaking walls and carpets, creating an atmosphere for mold and further damage.
Yet not much is happening inside to clean up the mess and to keep the damage from spreading. The only two tenants in the mostly empty building can’t use their offices because there is no heat and no electricity.
“The ironic thing is we do insurance restoration,” said Carrie Hutchinson, the owner of tenant Halo Construction. “Our employees have been out working on other buildings with burst pipes. We know what needs to be done.”
But Hutchinson said her calls to the building’s owner, the Stratford Co. of Seattle, had not been returned.
George Webb, the chief executive officer of Stratford, said Monday that he is assessing the damage and determining what must happen next.
“The damage is basically done,” he said. The source of the water has been shut off and he has hired adjusters to help measure the losses.
“It’s such a big building,” Webb said. “You can’t just go in and start ripping out all the drywall.”
Webb said the financial situation with the building is unchanged. He is negotiating with Union Bank to address a threatened foreclosure of a loan the bank inherited when it took over Frontier Bank.
Webb said he continues to attempt to lease space in the building to commercial tenants, a reversal of an earlier strategy that had Stratford move such tenants out in hopes of converting the building to condos.
Since the condo market collapsed – after the tenants were mostly gone but before condo construction began – the building has been mostly empty with just two tenants inside, Halo and a photo studio.
The neglected condition of Old City Hall casts a shadow on another project nearby, the restoration of the Elks Lodge and construction of apartments and a hotel next door.
Unlike the Luzon, where the value was as much in its architectural pedigree as its significance on the cityscape, Old City Hall is much loved. Its bricks came as ballast on ships returning from Europe; its clock tower long dominated the skyline.
Along with Union Station and Stadium High School it is a structure that symbolizes Tacoma. Boe calls it a “postcard building.”
Saving it after the 1965 earthquake inspired the historic preservation movement in Tacoma and led to a pioneering landmarks preservation ordinance. Will it now reinvigorate that movement and lead to a strengthened ordinance?
Boe sent an e-mail to City Manager Eric Anderson, asking if city intervention is necessary.
“Unless we want another Luzon on our hands, I think some immediate dangerous building/code enforcement review is necessary as well as contacting the building ownership about the status of the building,” Boe wrote.
Councilman Marty Campbell has asked Anderson to brief the council at today’s noon study session. He said he wants to know what powers the city has to require an owner to meet building codes.
In response to e-mails inspired by a call to action by Kevin Freitas on his webpagefeedtacoma.com, Anderson wrote this: “I have no desire to place some future City Council and city manager in the position we found ourselves in with the Luzon, in which the actions of others over 30 years forced me to take an action I was loath to take.
“We are documenting tenants and preparing to take any and all actions that we are permitted to take under the law.”
Reuben McKnight, the city’s historic preservation officer, said staff is close to presenting post-Luzon ordinance changes to the council.
“We have several procedural and administrative approaches that are currently being vetted between departments,” McKnight wrote via e-mail. “This includes the city engaging in proactive inspections of historic buildings in order to monitor condition on an ongoing basis.”
I asked Campbell why people should care. Without hesitation he said: “It’s Old City Hall.”
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