So a consultant from a firm in Bellevue — a city incorporated in 1953 — took a look at historic downtown Everett and decided the 1923-vintage Hodges Building would be too expensive to renovate.
I was born in 1953. “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” was on TV in 1953. Everett became a city in 1893.
Wallace Properties, Inc., a Bellevue-based commercial real estate business, was hired by the city of Everett to evaluate a block of downtown. It includes part of Hewitt Avenue and the Hodges Building, damaged by a fatal fire in 2013.
The city is interested in redeveloping the block as Snohomish County plans for a new courthouse, according to recent Herald articles. On March 11, The Herald’s Noah Haglund reported that the consultant estimated it would cost at least $8.9 million to renovate the Hodges apartments.
“The consultant said it would be cheaper and make more business sense to tear down the nearly century-old edifice,” Haglund wrote. It’s possible the Hodges Building is too far gone to save, but surely our city can find a better source of preservation expertise than a Bellevue real estate firm.
Consider old buildings here and elsewhere reborn through major renovations.
The Hodges Building has a neighbor, the 1910 Commerce Building across the street at 1801 Hewitt Ave. Both were designed by Benjamin Turnbull in the style of the Chicago School of Architecture. Housing Hope, a local agency that provides low-income housing, acquired the Commerce Building in 1993 with the help of a state grant and other funding.
Today, the updated Commerce Building has 48 single-occupancy rooms and small apartments. It’s on the Washington Historic Register and the Everett Register of Historic Places. It remains an impressive sight along Hewitt Avenue, and a solid example of preservation that meets a need for very low-income housing.
The former Hotel Monte Cristo, built in 1925, is another fine piece of Everett’s past brought back from ruin.
Closed in the 1970s for code violations, it had long been in disrepair before a 1994 renovation. Earlier plans to restore the once-grand hotel at 1507 Wall St. had fallen apart. The $6.9 million project was accomplished through a private-public partnership. David Mandley’s Lojis Corp., then an Everett-based developer, won federal tax credits and business investments, including from the Boeing Co., Weyerhaeuser and several area banks.
Now, the Monte Cristo has 69 units of low-income housing on its upper floors operated by Catholic Housing Services, part of Catholic Community Services of Western Washington. And the elegant Monte Cristo Ballroom is a popular wedding venue.
The Washington Oakes Retirement Community has at its center Everett’s old Washington School building. Some residents remember being students at the elementary school, which was open 1908 to 1972.
In 1995, the Dykeman architectural firm completed a stellar restoration of the 1911 Everett High School building. That project won multiple awards, including a Merit Award from the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.
Bothell will soon have a tourist attraction at the old Anderson School. In 2010, the Oregon-based McMenamins hotel firm acquired the 1931 school building, which Bothell purchased the previous year from the Northshore School District.
“McMenamins will be a significant draw,” said Bothell City Manager Bob Stowe, calling the project “a catalyst for other development.” By mid-October, McMenamins is expected to open a 72-room hotel, restaurant, brew pub, spa and pool at the site. Stowe said it’s a $26 million project, part of a larger Bothell redevelopment plan.
Spokane’s Davenport Hotel is a magnificent example of a landmark that escaped demolition. A showplace, the 1914 Davenport hosted Charles Lindbergh, Clark Gable and Babe Ruth. It stood empty for years before entrepreneurs Walt and Karen Worthy finished a multimillion-dollar renovation in 2002, bringing back the hotel’s Spanish Renaissance-style lobby and opulent Hall of Doges ballroom.
McMenamins specializes in historic sites. Its Historic Edgefield resort, in Troutdale near Portland, was once a poor farm. The Old St. Francis School in Bend, a restored Catholic schoolhouse, is a hotel, brew pub and theater.
In Bothell, Stowe said Anderson School is an iconic structure. The city “could have taken the route of demolishing the facility,” he said. “That really wasn’t what our community wanted. We wanted a more authentic type of downtown.”
An authentic downtown sounds right for Everett, too. It takes money, and sometimes multiple investors. The payoff is a unique place, true to its history.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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