Big plans for former Tacoma school fall through again. Is it headed for demolition?
Tacoma Public Schools is applying for a demolition permit for the former Gault Middle School site after the most recent attempt to renovate the Eastside neighborhood building fell through during a feasibility period.
The 7.3-acre campus at 1115 E. Division Lane opened in 1926 and closed in 2009 after declining enrollment. Since then, the building has been declared surplus and in its vacancy has attracted vandalism, litter and property damage. A drive-by this week showed many broken windows and boarded-up sections of the former school.
In September 2021 the district entered into a purchase-and-sale agreement with Chaffey Building Group LLC with plans to preserve the original structure and transform it into a mixed-use housing development with about 200 units. There were also plans to add 80 to 100 units in an additional mid-rise apartment complex, as well as 65 to 80 for-sale townhomes and an urban village with coffee shops, a small gym, a restaurant, a bar, a small grocer and public green space.
Ultimately, Chaffey Building Group LLC determined that plan was not economically feasible given the costs to fix the historic building, as well as the economic climate with increasing construction costs and interest rates, said Alicia Lawver, the director of strategic planning for the school district. The neighborhood density also didn’t support the intended retail vision, according to a district press release.
Previous conversations about turning the building into veterans housing or selling the building to the Tacoma Housing Authority to turn into housing and a community center were ultimately determined unfeasible too, Lawver told The News Tribune in a recent interview.
When THA evaluated the property in 2020, it determined seismic upgrades as well as window and roof replacement would cost at least $6 million, she said.
“I’m sure that number is higher now and doesn’t include replacing electrical, other infrastructure or renovating the interior,” Lawver said.
Although the district doesn’t believe the school’s structure is “in an immediate concern of collapse,” deterioration since its closure and extensive damage from theft, vandalism and intruders has left it “not currently safe to be occupied,” Lawver said.
Much of the internal electrical wiring has been stripped and stolen, and broken windows, cut locks, damaged fencing and doors are in need of replacement, she said. There also have been fires and fireworks shot off inside, which has caused damage, Lawver said.
“The extensive cost to rehabilitate a historic structure has been a hurdle from the start,” Lawver said. “It’s like each time you go down a path of trying to find a solution with someone, it just gets older and older and the costs go up.”
Because the district has made several attempts to sell the property and acknowledges the building has become a nuisance in the neighborhood, the district is exploring steps to demolish the site, Lawver said. The City of Tacoma will advertise public comment opportunities as part of that process.
“We are definitely looking to reuse it for district purposes and hope to share more in the near future and engage with the community on that,” Lawver said. “We wanted to find a solution with somebody for this property, but we also can’t go another 10 years of just waiting. We have to invest our dollars where the kids are.”
Some residents still push for preservation
McKinley neighbor Morgan Alexander has been vocal in efforts to preserve the historic building and turn it into an arts-and-community center.
“In the McKinley neighborhoods there are no community centers. I’m having that problem right now, I’m trying to organize a neighborhood meeting, and there’s simply no place to have it,” Alexander told The News Tribune. “Which is just bizarre.”
Alexander founded the Facebook group Save Eastside Tacoma’s Historic Gault School to raise awareness about the issue and plans to host a meeting about the district’s announcement to demolish the site if he can find a place to do so in the next week.
He also founded Historic Tacoma, an organization with a mission to conserve and enhance Tacoma’s architectural character, and more recently started a nonprofit called the Tacoma Improvement Alliance to preserve historic buildings in Tacoma and make space for artists to work.
Alexander argues the school district hasn’t made enough of an effort to find another use for the space and says “serious neglect” from the district in maintaining the property and not weather-proofing the building for decades has resulted in its current state. He said other historic schools built around the same time have been saved.
“The effort that has been put into reusing it has been pretty minimal, and it’s been done in a vacuum,” he said. “The community has not been engaged. The school district is really good about doing ‘outreach,’ but not really about engaging and building the community.”
Lawver said other historic schools like Washington Elementary School and Stewart Middle School have been renovated and preserved.
“We’ve also demolished the Wainwright building; the original building was demolished and rebuilt. Mason Middle School, I believe a large amount of that original structure was demolished,” she said. “But those are all actually active campuses as well, and here we’ve had a building that does not have a campus — it was closed because of declining enrollments. So it’s a hard situation to have, and none of us want to be in this position.”
According to a Historic Assessment Report from the Tacoma Historic Preservation Office, the Gault Middle School building is eligible for the Tacoma Heritage Register. The school “represents an important phase in the evolution of the Tacoma School District, one of the first six middle schools built between 1924-1926” and is “an excellent example of the Collegiate Gothic Revival style” in a “long-established, highly visible part of the McKinley neighborhood and East Tacoma,” the report says.
In response to the district’s plans to reuse the land, Alexander said his expectations are “super low.”
“What they’re trying to do by getting rid of the building is just make it easier to market, easier to sell,” he said. “It definitely adds character to the neighborhood. Back then, they built things to last. And even though it’s kind of outlived its useful life as a school, it’s still structurally sound. It still can last another 100 years.”
