Vacant buildings have been on Puyallup police radar for years. Filling them with businesses will help

For years, a 124,000-square-foot building, also known as the former Lowe’s Home Improvement property in Puyallup, has sat vacant.

Cinder blocks block the entrances to its empty parking lot. Overgrown brush is rarely managed by an “out-of-town” property owner.

But plans currently in the works cite home furnishings retailer At Home and a 24 Hour Fitness gym as future tenants of the building at 301 37th Ave. SE, The News Tribune reported last Thursday.

“We expect there to be a lot of construction work on that site soon,” Puyallup development services director Tom Utterback said.

It’s positive activity for the city and the Puyallup Police Department. Because while the building sits empty, they’re seeing a different kind of activity — in the form of property damage and trespassing.

“Anytime that a building sits vacant for a long time you get calls as a result of the vacancy,” Puyallup police captain Ryan Portmann said.

In April, the Puyallup Police Department reported online about an incident on the 300th block of 37th Ave. SE. A transient female was located inside the building after units were checking on an order violation suspect, and was booked to the Puyallup jail.

“One front door to the business was found unsecure, and three (to) four more windows had (been) pried open,” according to the report. “It is apparently well-known to transients this is the place to go. Drug use rooms, sewage use and other problems within ... future issues are certain with the level of activity inside this building.”

Activity in the area comes in waves, Portmann said. According to police reports, calls to the building started in March. There were nine calls in March and April alone. There were three initiated security checks, three subject stops, one suspicious circumstance, one trespass and one damage to property.

It’s apparent that some have lived inside the building, Puyallup Deputy Chief Dave McDonald said. The police department made efforts to alleviate activity in the building by asking the property owner to secure the site. No trespassing signs were posted outside the property.

“It’s been vacant for so many years that at times it gets broken into, so maybe some transients set up camp in it,” McDonald said.

Lowe’s Home Improvement relocated to 3511 5th St. SE in 2012 after merging with Eagle Hardware. Every fall, the Halloween Spirit store uses the former Lowe's space, but aside from that, the property is vacant.

“It’s not an easy building to retrofit...There aren’t an awful lot of large retail tenants looking for space,” Utterback said.

At Home, based in Texas, plans to have its first Washington state store open around Christmas. About 37,000 square feet of the building will be leased to 24 Hour Fitness.

“To the city that’s a big deal, because that building has sat vacant for several years and we’ve been wanting to have some use on the site,” Utterback said.

There have been past issues with people dumping trash and shopping carts around the outskirts of the building, Utterback added.

Next door to the old Lowe’s site is a similar story. Formerly a Top Food, the site sat vacant for years until retailers Harbor Freight Tools, which opened this month, and Hobby Lobby became tenants. Hobby Lobby was issued building permits by the city two months ago, and is currently under construction.

Between January and April, 12 calls have been made from the former Top Food site. While seven of those calls were either security check-ins or construction workers accidentally triggering alarms, there were also reports of burglary and theft of lights, batteries and rolls of copper wire. Graffiti was also reported.

In January, police asked about obtaining a nighttime security guard, but was dismissed by the construction company as “cost prohibitive.”

But the city and police department say some relief is coming soon, when the stores officially open.

“Whenever you have tenants and good management and eyes on the site, it just helps in terms of any nuisance problems,” Utterback said.

“With us, it’s not soon enough,” McDonald said.

This story was originally published May 30, 2018 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Vacant buildings have been on Puyallup police radar for years. Filling them with businesses will help."