Army Corps denies appeal to save historic Collins Building

Published 12:01 am Thursday, November 26, 2009

EVERETT — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has denied an appeal by Historic Everett intended to stop the Port of Everett from demolishing a building on the city’s waterfront.

In a letter to Valerie Steel, the group’s president, Col. Anthony Wright said the Historic Everett’s complaints didn’t change his mind that the port had met all the requirements necessary to remove the Collins Building.

The building is on national and state registers of historic places as among the last of the woodworking and lumber mills that used to line the city’s waterfront.

The corps required the port to work with several groups to examine ways to save the Collins Building as a condition of the port’s permit to build a new marina in the area for large boats.

Port officials said saving the building could cost as much as $15 million, much more than its economic value. It looked for a private group that could develop the building, but the only developer interested wasn’t able to find financing.

Historic Everett had said the port inflated the estimate of what it would cost to rehabilitate the building.

Wright said the groups complaints weren’t “sufficient to warrant revising our determination.”

“We believe the port has provided evidence the redevelopment costs estimates were credible and any refinement of the cost estimates would be unable to overcome the substantial disparity between projected income and redevelopment costs,” Wright wrote.

Steel said Wednesday that the corps letter was disappointing, but that several issues remain to be resolved about the building.

She noted that a previous letter from the corps had talked about the importance of preserving historic buildings.

What the group would like to do, Steel said, is to meet with the port commission, which will have two new members in January, and discuss the issue.

“We need to sit down at the table and talk about this,” she said. “The corps has said that if there is no pressing reason to do so (demolish the building) than we shouldn’t do it.”

The port’s Lisa Lefeber said nothing will happen to the Collins Building until a court case and other complaints to the corps are resolved.