Vacant school has troubled Tacoma for 10 years. Will demolition permits finally bring change?
For Jim McCaig, living next to the shell of what once was Gault Middle School in Tacoma has been frustrating, to say the least.
A 32-year resident of Tacoma, McCaig said it wasn’t long after the school at 1115 E. Division Lane closed in 2009 that he started noticing problems, from people breaking into the building and smashing windows, to loitering near his property.
“It’s just been getting progressively worse,” McCaig said as he stood outside his home in August.
McCaig, who is 77, said he always tries to alert police or the city’s non-emergency 311 help line if he sees a problem, and usually calls at least once a week, sometimes twice.
“But you know, I can’t keep track of it all anymore,” he said. “I’m too old to keep track.”
In May, Tacoma Public Schools, which owns the property, submitted permits to the City of Tacoma to demolish some of the structures on the Gault campus with the hopes of attracting buyers.
Neighbors hope a demolition means movement toward a new future for the Gault property, but for many, the years of trouble have had a lasting impact.
A history of complaints
Complaints about Gault are not new.
“There are tents now at the school and homeless people making a huge mess,” said a 311 complaint from February 2021.
“Trash, garbage, debris, noise, drugs,” according to one complaint dated May 2020. “He has been on East Division and K for a month. I’m nervous for his safety because he opens the door and sits there forever on a busy street. I gave Gault School as the address because there is no address for the street.”
“Constant garbage found outside vehicles parked there, for several nights,” said a complaint from September 2019. “… fights /arguments everyday for the past 1.5 weeks between them at all hours of the day or night. … garbage being thrown by the homeless into our back yards. We have confronted them but they do not stop. … fecal matter found in our alley way.”
Catherine Ushka, Tacoma City Council member for District 4, which includes the Gault property, is well aware of the complaints. Prior to being elected to Tacoma City Council in 2017, she’d served on the Tacoma Public Schools Board of Directors since 2009, the same year Gault closed.
Conversations around closing Gault came as early as 2006, as the district searched for ways to save money amid declining enrollment. According to News Tribune records, the proposal to close Gault by then-superintendent Charlie Milligan — who took a buyout after a single controversial year on the job — came as a surprise to many, as the district had been primarily focusing on elementary schools. Some criticized the proposed closure, worried about losing their neighborhood school and what might become of the building.
Ushka, who was a leader of the Eastside Neighborhood Council at the time, felt the suggestion to close Gault was abrupt.
“I ran for school board in part because I was still mad about Gault,” Ushka said.
Gault officially closed at the end of the 2008-2009 school year as part of a school merger to form First Creek Middle School.
“Unfortunately, (Gault) has sat mostly empty over the past decade,” said Alicia Lawver, a spokesperson for Tacoma Public Schools.
Since its closure, neighbors have been asking Tacoma Public Schools to do something with the property. Police, fire and homeless outreach crews have responded to the property on numerous occasions.
The News Tribune requested the number of calls made to the Tacoma Police Department, Tacoma Fire Department and the City of Tacoma regarding Gault Middle School between 2010 through March 2021.
The city counted 50 total incidents in that time frame in which the Tacoma Fire Department responded to Gault, with the highest number of responses per year totaling 11 in 2015. The department responded three times in 2018, once in 2019, three times in 2020 and has responded two times in 2021 so far between January and March.
Between 2014 and 2021, there were 24 recorded complaints to the city’s 311 line that noted “Gault” and related to reported homeless encampments and requests for outreach, or were about someone camping on public property.
The 311 coordinator noted there were other records related to Gault, but they were requests about potholes, grass or streetlights.
The same records request to South Sound 911 yielded 414 calls between 2010 and March 2021 that were tied to the building, according to public records. South Sound 911 provides dispatch services for police and fire when a caller needs a prompt response to emergencies, such as a fight or assault, a fire or a possible life-threatening medical problem. Not all calls necessarily required emergency services.
On Nov. 20, 2020, Tacoma Housing Now, a housing advocacy group, created a spotlight on Gault when organizers announced they were taking over the building without the knowledge of Tacoma Public Schools and giving it to people experiencing homelessness. The group demanded the building be used rather than sitting empty, while hundreds of people slept outside.
Tacoma Public Schools sounded the alarm, saying the building was not safe for human habitation. The roof had partially collapsed, the electrical wires had been stripped and there’s asbestos and mold inside.
Later that day, when police arrived to clear the building, officers had to wear bio-hazard suits in order to enter.
Neighbors have claimed that the derelict school and the activity it attracts are impacting property values.
Anders Ibsen, a real estate broker with Windermere and a former Tacoma City Council member, said a derelict structure like Gault can influence property values, but there are many other factors.
According to a search conducted by Ibsen, the median home sale price in the McKinnley neighborhood was $380,000 within the last 365 days, compared to $365,000 for all home sales that took place in a 0.5 mile radius of Gault within the last year.
“Is that $15,000 disparity directly attributable to Gault? I doubt it,” Ibsen said in an email to The News Tribune. “So many other factors like square footage, condition, walkability, curb appeal, etc. influence one’s home value.”
Right now, Ibsen said, the greatest driver of home values in Western Washington is shortage of housing inventory.
“So does being next to a derelict building limit your home value? Probably, but this is more than offset by the fact that Tacoma home owners are riding a wave of staggering home value appreciation that is being driven by shortage market dynamics that will not end anytime soon,” Ibsen said.
What’s taking so long?
Walking the perimeter of the Gault property in late August, Lawver was pointing out to The News Tribune which buildings were planned for demolition when a man with a green backpack ducked out from under a fence surrounding one of the buildings.
“Sir, you can’t be in there!” Lawver called out to the man, who walked away.
Lawver pulled out her cell phone to contact a district security staff member, who said they’d stop by and check on the building.
Staff at Tacoma Public Schools said they know that the public wants to see action — they want to see it, too.
Officials with Tacoma Public Schools said they’ve had no luck finding a new owner for the property, and plans that gained some steam eventually fell apart.
After the school was closed, Puyallup Tribe of Indians and Department of Veterans Affairs expressed interest in purchasing the property, but the parties never came to an agreement.
The property remained on the market, with the district advertising it in The News Tribune in early years. The property also has been marketed through New Ventures Group and on the city of Tacoma’s surplus property page. When the district decided to pursue transferring the property to another agency, it reached out to organizations that qualified. The property was last appraised in 2021, totaling $1.05 million for the parcel with the Gault building in addition to $661,000 for the adjacent field.
Part of the difficulty, Lawver said, is a pool on the property, which was jointly run by the City of Tacoma and Metro Parks. The state and federal funding to operate the pool came with covenants attached that required an element of recreation be tied to the property “in perpetuity.” The pool closed when the Eastside Community Center opened with a pool in 2018, but the city, Metro Parks and the school district still are working to address the lingering covenants.
“Over that decade we’ve been working with different organizations to see how we could make use of the building, but we kept striking out,” Lawver said.
In January 2019, a plan to transform the site went as far as a letter of intent between Tacoma Public Schools and the Tacoma Housing Authority. THA considered a plan that would include developing mixed-income housing, a community facility and outdoor recreation spaces.
In October, THA announced it was backing out on acquiring the school, primarily due to financial impacts stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A main reason for Tacoma Housing Authority’s decision is the large cost of responsibly securing and protecting the property while it awaited full redevelopment,” THA and Tacoma Public Schools said in a joint statement last September.
It was back to square one.
What now?
In May, Tacoma Public Schools filed for a demolition permit with the City of Tacoma, seeking approval to demolish all outer buildings on the Gault property, except for the brick structure.
The money for the demolition — about $1 million — was set aside in the district’s last bond measure, passed in 2020.
On Tacoma’s online permit portal next to the permit, a notice appears for a code violation, labeling Gault a derelict building. According to the City of Tacoma, a derelict building is a “structure that may not be safe to live in, may be abandoned, or may not have utility services. Derelict buildings are often boarded up and may become an attractive nuisance for illegal activity and dumping.”
Lawver said there have been no fines issued to the district, and that part of its response to the code problems is included in the $1 million costs for demolition.
District officials hope that the demolition will make the property more marketable.
“If you look around the campus, there’s the main 1926 community building, but over the years there’s been many additions on the campus that are definitely in worse shape and so we want to be good neighbors — we want to find a solution for the community,” Lawver said. “So we’re working to get those torn down and try to continue to find a solution for the main building.”
The two-story brick building along East Division Lane was built in 1925 and opened in 1926. It was named after Dr. Franklin B. Gault, superintendent of Tacoma Public Schools from 1888 to 1892. Over the years, various annexes and buildings have been added onto the property.
While none of the structures are currently historically designated, a historic assessment report by Artifacts Consulting commissioned by the district in March suggests the 1926 brick building could be eligible for historic designation, due to it being an “important phase in the evolution of the Tacoma School District,” as well as the building’s Collegiate Gothic Revival style.
Lawver said the decision to move forward on designating the building as a historic landmark is part of the conversation. A more concrete timeline for the demolition of the outer buildings is being drafted.
Over the years, neighbors have shared ideas for what could take the place of the former school, from green space to housing to childcare to a business and art incubator.
Right now, the district is working with the city and other community organizations to see what’s possible, within reason.
“There are a lot of ideas out there, we just got to find a way to make them happen,” Lawver said.
When asked if he feels good about the future with demolition on the horizon, McCaig looked unsure.
“I hope so,” he said. “But we’ve heard this before.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
