Instead, the university has adopted an if-you-can’t-buy-it-block-it strategy that raises questions about how far government should go to prevent development of property it can’t afford to buy.

Case in point: 1945 Fawcett Ave., a half-acre with a troubled past – and an uncertain future – near the centerline of the campus footprint.

City inspectors found enough code violations there in July 2006 to close Fawcett House, a rundown apartment building, and evict the 45 tenants. Neighbors, who had complained to City Hall that Fawcett House deteriorated into a drug and prostitution magnet, cheered the crackdown.

The following month, in an article in The News Tribune, one of the shuttered building’s new investors announced plans to demolish the apartment house and construct an eight-story brick building with condominiums, some smaller rental units that could accommodate university student housing and some retail space on the ground floor.

“We’d love to look at student housing, due to the proximity of the campus, and re-energizing that area,” said Ron Gintz, chief operating officer of Gintz Group, a Tacoma development company.

Did the University of Washington like reading that? No.

Herb Simon, co-chairman of the Executive Council for a Greater Tacoma and member of the University of Washington Board of Regents, contacted Ron Gintz the following day and asked him to hold off on his development project temporarily.

Simon asked for time to lobby his fellow regents and the Legislature for money to buy the Fawcett House site. Gintz agreed.

Less than two weeks later, Chancellor Patricia Spakes sent a letter to Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson asking for the city’s help eliminating the one thing that made Gintz Group’s project possible financially: the 10-year property tax exemption for multifamily residential projects.

Without the tax break, the Gintz Group project had no profit margin.

“We seek the City of Tacoma’s support to develop methods to ensure that the property within the campus footprint and not yet in UW Tacoma’s possession, can be acquired in the future,” Spakes wrote in a letter obtained by The News Tribune. “From a master planning perspective, we wish to ensure that the campus footprint is respected for full build-out.”

So inside City Hall, the legal staff drafted a bill for the UWT to push in the 2007 legislative session. The bill eliminated the popular multifamily tax incentive – originally designed to draw more residents to Tacoma’s urban core – for any property inside the boundaries of the campus master plan.

Nobody told Gintz Group about the bill.

“Legislation is a public document,” said Simon, whose Executive Council for a Greater Tacoma lobbied for the bill, too.

“I call it ‘The Gintz Bill,’” Ron Gintz said. “It didn’t feel very good.

“It’s essentially a ‘takings,’” he argued, referring to a government act that reduces the value of private property.

The bill passed.

But what about the legislative appropriation Simon pursued to buy the Fawcett House site? That didn’t even get introduced in Olympia.

Mike Wark, UWT spokesman, justified the university’s action with two arguments:

 • The tax incentive isn’t a property owner’s right; it’s a benefit.

 • By blocking condominiums, the UWT saves taxpayers money in the long run. Negotiating to buy one vacant parcel will cost much less than negotiating individual purchases with more than 100 condominium owners.

“We have a master plan with a long-range view of what this University of Washington campus can do for the South Sound region,” Simon said. “That’s a public and social responsibility. As a regent and a steward of the college, we owe that to the public.”

Gintz says he understands that. He loves the university, what it has meant to Tacoma’s revival and what more it will mean in the future.

“We are huge advocates for all that the University of Washington brings to Tacoma,” said Dave Gintz, Ron’s son and CEO of the company. “Unfortunately, we have a piece of property and our own investors we’re responsible to.”

But if state government wants to ensure the integrity of the UWT’s campus, it should appropriate the money to buy the property, Ron Gintz said. It shouldn’t expect investors to hold vacant, non-income-producing property and pay the property taxes indefinitely.

So far, the UWT has acquired roughly 70 percent of the property within its master plan footprint.

“We’ve done a pretty good job of acquiring property as it becomes available,” Wark said.

Just not 1945 Fawcett Ave. So what now?

Gintz sent a letter to Spakes offering to collaborate with the UWT so that whatever his company built would fit with the campus master plan.

Spakes declined.

“UWT has no current interest in expanding to properties located along Fawcett Street,” Spakes wrote back. “Our intention is to focus our campus planning and construction activities for the next five to ten years around the central core of the campus.”

Now, Gintz Group has a new concept – a five- to eight-story assisted-living center for senior citizens. A preliminary market analysis from Paradigm Senior Living Inc., a Portland consultant and operator of senior-living projects, shows a market demand for assisted living downtown.

How would that fit with the UWT master plan?

“It wouldn’t,” Wark said.

“Candidly,” Simon said, “I don’t see why a developer would want to build something that’s not consistent with the UWT and the campus and the energy that’s going into our master plan … something that’s a nonconsistent use with the future University of Washington.”

But the UWT can’t stop Gintz Group, Wark acknowledged, “if we don’t have the money to buy it.”

The University of Washington Regents, as soon as Thursday, will consider a request from Spakes to include $5.5 million for property acquisition in their 2008 legislative request. If they do, then the request must get through a short session in Olympia. Facing an election year for Gov. Chris Gregoire, Democratic legislators in control won’t want to increase spending in a budget they adopted earlier this year.

If the UWT had the money – or the assurance of money, Ron Gintz said, the investors would sell the university an option for a price that allowed them to recoup the value of the property, the holding costs and additional investments in development concepts.

But each month the land sits fallow costs Gintz Group roughly $8,000, Ron Gintz said.

Architect Jim Merritt of Merritt Arch has designed the assisted-living center with a faade that matches the historic brick look of the UWT campus. The interior shell, he said, could accommodate classrooms, student housing or offices if the university chose to acquire the building years from now.

“We’re not interested in that,” Simon said bluntly. “We’re not going to be looking to buy assisted living from them.”

Neither Gintz Group nor the UWT should have to deal with this mess.

The case of 1945 Fawcett Ave. highlights the tension, potential land speculation by investors and incompatible development that can undermine an urban university’s ability to grow. In the evolution of higher education in Washington, these urban branch campuses still rank as young ventures.

The parent universities and the Legislature can learn a lesson here: Appropriate the money to buy the property you need, and offset the cost by leasing it for productive urban uses until you need to develop it 10, 20 or 30 years from now.

If you can’t buy it, don’t force private property owners to eat the costs of holding the property, and don’t hamstring their ability to recoup their investments.

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com

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