Downtown Tacoma’s Columbia-Heidelberg brewery buildings mark the spot of an important part of Tacoma’s history, but that’s not enough to save them from the wrecking ball.
The owners of the brewery complex at South 21st and C streets plan to demolish the 80-year-old structures to resolve a November dangerous building complaint from the City of Tacoma.
When it’s gone, the Brewery District will lose its last intact brewing complex, said local historic preservation consultant Michael Sullivan. Some buildings on the site of the Pacific Brewing and Malting Complex a few blocks south will be affected by the extension of a Sound Transit rail line, he said.
“It’s tragic that there’s nothing there to save, but there really is nothing there to save,” said attorney Gary Branfeld, who represents Tony and Barbara Trunk of Strand Investors, one of the Heidelberg complex’s owners. Branfeld addressed the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission on Wednesday night, as the group reviewed demolition plans because the buildings are in a historic conservation district.
A report prepared in 2008 and submitted to the commission indicates that although the buildings date from post-Prohibition construction in the mid-1930s, the “repeated modernization … remodeling and expansion” in the 1950s and 1980s have left virtually none of the original 1900 brewhouse and offices intact.
On a 7-2 vote, the commission decided that the buildings, which aren’t listed on any historic register, don’t contribute significantly to the Union Station Conservation District. That clears the way for the owners to obtain permits to demolish it. That demolition should be complete by this summer, said Branfeld.
“This one has significantly lost its historic nature over time, which makes it less desirable to rehabilitate, because it doesn’t have the architectural interest there to start with. You’re working with a big block,” said commissioner Pamela Sundell.
One of the dissenting votes came from Megan Luce, who tried to have the commission postpone a decision for 30 days to find out who designed the existing buildngs. That measure failed, 7-2.
“The original wood structures may be gone, but what’s built in their place were also built in the 1930s. Those still are historic buildings,” she said. “I personally would feel it a big loss to lose these buildings.”
Tony Trunk said that rehabilitating the building would cost millions that he and his co-owner, Lester Collons, don’t have.
“We had one company that made an offer and spent a long time studying it and they were at a little more than $12 million to do rehab and restoration,” he said Tuesday. “Today, even if you could do it for half that amount, I don’t suppose there’s any market for it.”
Demolition of the site down to the slab will cost about $662,000 according to documents Trunk filed with the city.
How will they pay for that? “Very painfully,” Trunk said after the commission’s decision. He said that he and Collons will split the cost.
Local historic preservation consultant Michael Sullivan said this week that the Heidelberg brewery site isn’t an easy case, though there are some elements that could be used in a new structure.
“The end result of this will be a surface parking lot in the middle of a historic district and that doesn’t do anyone any good,” Sullivan said Tuesday, before the commission voted. “If I were on the commission I would err on the side of keeping the building. The uncertainty of what would come if it were gone would scare me.”
Branfeld told the commission Wednesday that the owners would work with the city on how the empty site would look. A Holiday Inn Express is planned for the lot north of the soon-to-be razed brewery.
City spokesman Rob McNair-Huff said Thursday that the complaint about the brewery was filed by the Tacoma Police Department’s downtown community liaison officer.
“It was in response to concerns he’d been hearing from community about crime, the state the building was in, and the accusations about what might have been going on in the building at the time, including prostitution,” McNair-Huff said.
City inspectors scheduled an inspection and found a host of problems, including unstable walls, an unsafe electrical system and standing water. McNair-Huff said that the city will take no further action as long as the building owner works to resolve the situation – which in this case means moving toward demolition.
Sullivan said the difficult economy has set the stage for these decisions.
“It’s too bad that there isn’t a way to ratchet back on the getting-rid-of-older buildings because of their condition. It’s very much reminisent of tools used by cities in urban renewal days in the 1960s,” he said. “Basically anything that’s old and looks old is a target for just tearing down even without a plan for replacement.”
Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546 kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com
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