A new mixed-use apartment and hotel building critical to the rebirth of downtown Tacoma’s historic Elks Temple won the approval of a key city commission Wednesday.
The Tacoma Landmarks Preservation Commission gave its unanimous blessing to the design of the 14-story structure at 545 Broadway after architects presented a proposal modified to meet commission members’ earlier concerns. Wednesday night’s meeting was the third commission review for the building, which is adjacent to the landmark lodge.
Grace Pleasants, the Tacoma developer behind the complex project to restore the Elks Temple, said the commission’s endorsement is critical to getting the project moving.
“It’s ready to go to the city for the final permits,” she said after the meeting.
Under the plan proposed by Pleasants and her business partner, Rick Moses, Oregon hoteliers McMenamins will revamp the temple as an entertainment venue with restaurants, pubs and live-music spaces. Three stories of the structure north of the Elks will contain the McMenamins lobby and 100 hotel rooms. Above those hotel rooms will be five floors of apartments topped by a rooftop bar. Below the hotel lobby, the City of Tacoma will build a four-story parking structure for hotel guests, apartment dwellers and Elks customers.
This Elks project is the latest in a series of attempts to find a new use for the grand white building west of Old City Hall. At least three other developers proposed reuses for the building over the past three decades, but their ideas never came to fruition.
The approval process on this latest idea has taken longer than Pleasants and Moses had hoped.
Pleasants said she expects the city will clear the project plans within 45 days so she and Moses can submit the final plans to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The developers need HUD loan guarantees to ensure financing for the residential part of the deal.
Pleasants and Moses had made proposals to HUD last fall, but the government agency rejected their plan because it required the government to insure the loan not only on the five apartment floors but also for the rooftop bar complex.
After HUD voiced its disapproval, the developer said, the rooftop bar financing was switched to another lender they had secured to finance the hotel portion of the project.
If the new plans are submitted to HUD about Sept. 1, their review could be delayed because of the jam of proposals submitted at the end of the fiscal year, said a HUD spokesman. The federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
“Once we get the proposal to HUD, then it’s kind of a crapshoot as to when they’ll approve it,” Pleasants said.
Even in the most optimistic version of the development timeline, the project won’t open in fall 2012 as previously planned, Pleasants said.
“I think we’re looking more like the spring of 2013,” she said. “Maybe Mike McMenamin will get his wish, a St. Patrick’s Day opening.”
The design that the commission approved Wednesday differed substantially from the more-plain building the commission viewed in January. The building now is wrapped in two shades of glass with three vertical bays on the west side. The east side of the building, the Stadium Way side, features six-inch “fins” of dichroic glass protruding perpendicular to the glass view walls.
That glass has a metallic coating that changes colors depending on the light and viewing angle. That ornamentation was added to the design after the commission complained the building was too plain on the water side.
While the commission approved the plan, member Pamela Sundell asked architects Corinne Kerr and Randal Bennett of the Seattle architectural firm ZGF to work further to add more variation to the building’s north wall.
That wall, which abuts the historic University Union Club, has no windows or penetrations because of fire and seismic codes. The plan now calls for sheathing the concrete wall with corrugated metal to give it texture.
John Gillie: 253-597-8663
john.gillie@thenewstribune.com
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.