It’s a shame Tacoma must sacrifice history for housing. Let’s find a way to change that
The old Wahlgren Florist Shop is now set to be razed, sacrificed at the altar of Tacoma’s pronounced housing crisis. With it, decades of history will likely be leveled, chewed up and hauled off, making way for the new units the city desperately needs.
That was the City Council’s decision last week, and likely the only reasonable one to reach, given the circumstances. Staring at the stark reality of Tacoma’s housing crunch, and the timing — with an eager developer itching to begin construction on a site purchased with the intent to build — the former flower shop probably never stood a chance, even as local historic preservation efforts sought to save it from proposed demolition at the 11th hour.
So the page turns. Tacoma changes, as it always has, to emerge anew. A building on North Yakima Avenue in the Stadium District appears lost, with a fresh one to rise in its place. Some mourn while others celebrate, and life in the little big city goes on.
None of that is to say that we should be satisfied with the process as it played out, the debate it spawned or the limitations in policy that were exposed. We all know Tacoma is quickly growing — and must grow faster in the future — but if we fail to find creative ways to facilitate growth while mitigating the architectural and culture losses, the impact will be profound and permanent.
At the old Wahlgren Florist Shop, it could have meant working with the developer on a design that preserved or recreated at least some of the building’s character. While championing the complete preservation of the one-story, flat-roofed commercial property was doomed from the start — and could really only be done by ignoring both the dire need for more housing and the ugly and exclusionary aspects of preservation efforts in affluent neighborhoods — the building’s large glass windows and cantilevered awning are small pieces of Tacoma that have value, and the sense of place they’ve helped to create over the years matters. Not everything can be saved, nor should it be, but there should be a way to craft city policy that makes it possible to hold onto something, or at least pay architectural homage to what came before.
So how might the city create a path toward compromise in the future, and why couldn’t it get there this time?
The unsatisfying answer to the latter boils down to process and rigid constraints of how we currently think about historic preservation. The only decision the council was being asked to make last week was whether the old Wahlgren Florist Shop was worth saving in full, and the reason is simple: It’s the only decision they could make, because that’s where the city’s current historic preservation policy starts and stops. It creates a framework for demolition reviews in certain cases, and a way for citizens to fight for wholesale preservation, but there’s little middle ground.
The good news is that this isn’t a fate we have to accept as the unquestioned price of progress. The city already works with developers to incentivize some of the things we know are important — like the construction of affordable housing and transit oriented development — and there’s no reason why we couldn’t thoughtfully add to that list. An optional design review — with a carrot for developers to participate — is one potential solution, provided it doesn’t slow important projects to a halt. Expanding cultural resource reviews — which are done in other situations, and often lead to historic elements being preserved and incorporated in new developments — is another idea worth serious consideration.
Watching the final chapter of the old Wahlgren Florist Shop be written in recent months, it’s hard not to be struck by how the lines were drawn for us and how much detail was missed in the process. While the city’s history and its devastating lack of available housing understandably took center stage in the debate, those two things were pitted against each other in a way they never had to be. If we were to allow space for debate to extend beyond our current confines — through deliberate policy decisions that encourage the preservation or recreation of important neighborhood features without scuttling entire developments — not everyone would be happy, but at least we’d hang onto something.
Until then, we’re likely left to wrestle with more decisions like the one we saw last week at the old Wahlgren Florist Shop, where threatened mid-century retail spaces are argued over like they’re the Luzon, which clearly misses the point. Supporting the construction of new housing doesn’t have to involve desperately rolling over and taking what we get any more than preserving things that create Tacoma’s character should mean waging unwinnable battles against change.
There’s no doubt Tacoma needs all the housing it can get. There’s no question that efforts to thwart development — particularly in whiter, more well-off neighborhoods — are often thinly veiled campaigns designed to keep others out. Given a choice strictly between saving the old Wahlgren Floral Shop and 78 units in a neighborhood better suited than most for density and growth, the City Council made the right decision.
But we also sacrificed a small part of our history in the process, and what the Wahlgren’s saga demonstrates is that traditional historic preservation efforts — and the policies that guide them — are ill-equipped to meet the city’s current moment of growth and urgency.
While I suspect we’ll find a way to live with this loss, it’s not one that can be undone.
I also suspect it won’t be the last, unless the conversation changes.
