What a fight to save an old floral shop tells us about the future of Tacoma development
Michael Sullivan has a theory on city planning, particularly at a time when Tacoma is growing and changing all around us.
The first step, he says, is deciding what to keep.
In some instances, the local historian and former Tacoma historic preservation officer says the choices are obvious. City-defining buildings like Old City Hall, the Elks Lodge and Union Station are all landmarks that nearly everyone sees the importance of hanging onto.
There are other buildings — like the local unique retail spaces that help to define a neighborhood’s sense of place — that also are worth fighting to preserve, Sullivan said.
The former Wahlgren Florist Shop, 201 N. Yakima Ave. in Tacoma’s Stadium District, fits the bill, Sullivan said.
As is so often the case, it took the risk of losing it for many to stand up and take notice.
It’s a building Sullivan knows well, having once occupied it with his historic preservation consulting businesses.
Recently, the Tacoma Landmarks Commission recommended adding the former floral shop to the city’s historic register. Tacoma City Council’s Infrastructure, Planning and Sustainability Committee heard the argument and cautiously agreed at a meeting on Jan. 13, forwarding the decision to the full City Council while voicing a desire for further discussion.
If it eventually happens — which we should know in the coming weeks — it would “effectively” prevent the building from being razed, according to Tacoma’s current Historic Preservation Officer, Reuben McKnight.
That matters because in July 2019, the old florist shop and lots that surround it — which are across the street from the Casablanca Apartments — were sold for roughly $900,000, according to excise tax documents. A subsequent development pre-application filed with the city shows that the building’s new owner has proposed demolition of the building and the residence next door to make way for a multifamily housing development, with roughly 78 units.
It sets the stage for exactly the kind of debate that Tacoma should be having.
We know the city’s population will grow and is growing. We know we already need more housing and will need even more in the future. There’s no way around it
As City Councilman Conor McCarthy, chair of the Infrastructure, Planning and Sustainability committee, put it: “We need more housing in this community. We need it now, not tomorrow.”
So what do we keep? What’s important to keep?
Should progress claim the Wahlgren Florist Shop building?
Or, does the building represent one of those small pieces of Tacoma’s collective story worth preserving?
The building’s owner — A & A Property Holdings LLC, which is registered to Aleksey Guyvoronsky — has fought the push to add the old floral shop to the city’s historic register. Through his attorney, Guyvoronsky declined an interview request from The News Tribune
For Marshall McClintock, a Historic Tacoma board member who worked to nominate the Wahlgren Florist Shop for the historic register, the answer is clear, while admittedly complicated.
The building is within the boundaries of the Stadium-Seminary Washington Heritage and National Register Historic Districts. McClintock said there should be a way to protect it while still finding a way to encourage the housing the city needs.
“These small businesses are iconic in the development of the neighborhood commercial districts that we have in the city,” McClintock said, comparing the floral shop building to one like Frisko Freeze.
“These are all stores and businesses that give the character to the city. From Historic Tacoma’s perspective, retaining them, or at least some of them, is important,” he said.
Having occupied the corner at North Yakima Avenue and North Second since it opened in 1949, the Wahlgren Florist Shop is easy to take for granted. A one-story, flat-roofed commercial building that was designed in a style indicative of the florist shops of the day, the building long ago blended into the Stadium District’s aesthetic — even after the floral shop closed — helping to create the neighborhood’s feel while also easing itself into the background. It has mostly recently served as commercial office space.
Beyond that, the building tells the story of a Swedish immigrant and former Northern Pacific Railroad boilermaker, Fred Wahglren, who launched a successful business as a second career, passed down to his wife and children after he died. It also reflects the area’s long ties to the bulb and cut flower industry, which spawned from the rural valleys that surround us and the Japanese Americans who cultivated them.
According to McCarthy, the ideal outcome would be a development that manages to incorporate the old floral shop into its design. Even if the building is added to the city’s historic register, that doesn’t mean the possibility of new housing goes away.
McKnight said he isn’t sure what will happen.
It’s doable, McCarthy hopes. It would just look different and be different.
To Sullivan, that’s exactly the point.
“In a time like this, when there’s just so much growth pressure, we shouldn’t be rushed out of having a sense of being a unique city,” Sullivan said.
“There’s a narrative and backstory of the city that’s wrapped up in these buildings.”
