EVERETT — The Collins Building, the historic building on the Everett waterfront that was last used as a casket company, is getting what amounts to a redo later this week.
The building, on the state and national registers of historic places as the last surviving example of buildings that once lined the city’s waterfront, had been set for removal by the Port of Everett.
The decision followed a process of several years that included a failed attempt to get private financing to save it and a couple lawsuits to fend off demolition.
Then the port’s three-member commission received two new members last fall who promised in their election campaigns to revisit the issue. The result is an all-day meeting Saturday in which the port will re-examine the cost of saving the building and look at the community support for doing so.
The public workshop is scheduled to start at 8:15 a.m. at the Everett Transit Station.
Supporters of the 60,000-square-foot building, constructed on timber pilings in 1926, would like to see it transformed into a public market on the first floor, a maritime museum on the second floor and office and retail space on the third.
Earlier port studies suggested that bringing the building up to various codes for public use would cost about $15 million, a number strongly disputed by Collins Building supporters.
Part of the Saturday meeting will be to review a new cost study by a Seattle-based Kovalenko Hale Architects.
“My goal in this review process is to update the numbers to 2010 costs and undertake a process that gives the port commission and the community faith in the redevelopment cost estimates,” said Troy McClelland, one of the new commissioners. “The numbers were last updated in 2005, and the construction market has changed markedly in the last five years.”
In addition to costs, the port will also look at community values and gauge support from other nonprofit groups.
The effort is supported by Valerie Steel of Historic Everett, a strong supporter of the Collins Building.
“I just can’t heap enough praise on this new complement of commissioners,” she said. “They’re taking a 21st-century approach to the challenges.”
Steel, noting that a company that was planning a $400 million redevelopment of the waterfront area that includes the Collins Building is now in bankruptcy, said she “just doesn’t see 660 high-end condos on the Everett waterfront in the near future.”
She would like to see the area redeveloped in a way that would have “something for everyone.”
In her vision, that includes a farmers market that could be used year-round and would become a good gathering place for the community that would draw more people through the city’s downtown.
“There are very few public gathering places in Everett,” she said.
One issue the port will have to deal with is how to redesign its new Craftsman District if the Collins Building remains.
The district is a part of the redevelopment plan that has gone ahead while the condos have not. The Collins Building sits in an area that had been intended to serve boat repair businesses. The area has an expensive “zero discharge” boat yard the would allow businesses to do the work and collect oil and other pollutants without discharging them into Puget Sound.
“The question is what happens to our boat storage space if the Collins Building stays,” said Jeff LaLone of Bayside Marine. “The Collins Building is sitting smack dab in where that storage was supposed to be.”
Lauren Bivens of Harbor Marine agreed.
“What do we do with all the boats?” he asked.
Bivens said in the busy summer months, the marine businesses in the area need spaces for about 80 boats. There are about 35 spots in the zero-discharge yard now. The Collins space would handle another 28 boats, so it still would not meet the need for the area, Bivens said.
Dan Hatch of Bayside noted that finding boat storage space elsewhere likely means designating another zero-discharge area for repairs, something he said could be quite expensive.
He’s concerned that the port isn’t including that in its costs of saving the Collins Building.
“We don’t think there’s a lot of awareness of that issue right now,” Bivens said.
Collins Building workshop
The public workshop on the Collins Building is scheduled for 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in the Weyerhaeuser Room of the Everett Transit Station, 3201 Smith Ave. For a full meeting agenda, go to http://tinyurl.com/CollinsAgenda.
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