Parkland landmark faces demolition. Should old school be saved or leveled for housing?

Dozens of Parkland residents have been publicly condemning Pacific Lutheran University’s attempt to sell one of the neighborhood’s oldest buildings. If the sale goes through, the Parkland School, a structure that held classes for over a century, would be demolished and redeveloped as apartments.

At a regularly scheduled listening session in early June, Pierce County Council member Jani Hitchens passed a microphone from supporter to supporter of the former school. Each spoke about how they believe the building’s exterior, a two-story beige brick structure on 121st Street South, is essential to Parkland’s sense of community.

The building is listed on Pierce County’s Register of Historic Places.

“We need to be reconsidering and stopping the destruction,” said Parkland School alumnus Ruth Peterson during the public discussion. “Then we can begin to talk about the possibilities”

Bellevue-based Veer Architecture applied for a demolition permit in February. According to the application, Veer and DRK Development plan to build a five-story apartment building with 68 units. They expect the new building to be about 13,000 square feet and the project cost to total about $10 million.

Lead project architect Kent Smutny did not return multiple interview requests from The News Tribune. DRK founder Reed Kelley declined to comment on the story.

The building has not been in use over the past four years. In a March meeting, PLU vice president and chief operating officer Teri Phillips cited safety hazards, trespassing and vandalism as reasons for the county’s Landmarks and Historic Preservation Committee to remove the former school’s historic place designation.

The committee voted to remove the landmark status but later postponed the decision until a June 21 meeting after Parkland School alumni voiced concerns that the meeting’s agenda was not publicized.

“I attended by Zoom, the meeting where they discussed this, and I tell you, it was fact free,” Peterson said during the public discussion. “You’re ascribing more expertise to [the commission] than they displayed at the meeting in March, where they decided it would be a good idea to take away the historic designation.”

A Lens Into Parkland’s History

The former school is one of the oldest buildings in Parkland. According to Bruce Rushton, a meeting attendee and Parkland School alumnus, it started serving students as early as 1908. Over the next seven decades, the building operated as a public primary school called The Parkland School.

“I can still remember the first time I saw the place,” Rushton said. “The gym is like right out of the movie ‘Hoosiers,’ with hardwood floors … it was a really welcoming, good place.”

The Franklin Pierce School District shut down school operations in 1982 and soon thereafter leased the building to Pacific Lutheran University. PLU repurposed the space into college classrooms and bought the property in 1990.

According to Zach Powers, PLU’s director of communications, the university stopped holding classes in the building in 2014. Between 2014 and 2018, Mount Rainier Lutheran High School used the property for its operations but ultimately relocated to Tacoma’s Eastside neighborhood. The building has not been used since.

Powers said there are many reasons why it would be difficult for PLU to maintain ownership of the property.

“This is a building a few blocks off campus, so it’s just not part of our future plans,” he said. “It’s also a building that is not up to code in quite a few ways. It’s not ADA accessible. There’s a broken lift ... that’s so old that we can’t even buy parts to fix it. It’s become a target for arson and graffiti and steel wire theft.”

According to Powers, PLU has made efforts over the last eight years to find long-term tenants or sell the space to a buyer who could repurpose it. Because the building requires so many repairs, PLU has not been able to attract another group to use it as is.

Despite the building’s interior problems, Rushton sees aesthetic value in its exterior. He believes the former school’s architecture is a hallmark of the Parkland community.

“It absolutely sticks out like a sore thumb in the best possible way,” he said. “It screams historic school. The front of it looks like an old-time courthouse.”

Impending recommendations

While a Pierce County historical landmark designation confers grant eligibility and a special tax designation to a property, it does not protect a building from being razed.

If someone intends to modify a building designated as a landmark, they are required to submit permits for review to the county’s Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission. The commission then can make recommendations to change plans, but those recommendations do not hold legal weight over the structure’s fate.

Sean Gaffney, the Pierce County land use and environmental review manager, said the commission’s review of PLU’s plans for the Old Parkland School Building will be presented at a meeting on June 21. While the commission can suggest modifications to PLU’s plan, it will not require PLU to make the changes.

Despite the irrelevance of the recommendations, many Parkland alumni think the commission’s presentation should still be taken seriously. Like others at the meeting, Rushton believes PLU has a duty to preserve his former school through some means.

“Their responsibility for this building and to the community is to be a steward of history,” Rushton said. “My concern is that we’ve gone straight from a historic building to this idea without looking at anything in between in any kind of a serious way.”