By Theresa Goffredo
Herald Writer
EVERETT — One could look at it this way: The city might be losing a landmark, but it’s gaining a statue and a fountain.
The landmark is the Moffat Building, which houses the Cosmopolitan theater and apartments at 1908-1910 Hewitt Ave.
The building’s owners, Craig Dieffenbach and Peter and Helen Sikov, sold the building Aug. 21 to the city of Everett, which plans on tearing it down to make way for a $50 million hockey arena and special events center.
The city bought the building for $825,000. The theater’s owners bought the property in January for $425,000. The building is assessed at $719,900. The theater’s owners had a private firm appraise the building at $1 million.
The city also had the building appraised, but those appraisal figures will not be released until all the properties in the way of the arena project are bought by the city, said Everett city attorney Mark Soine.
Soine did say that the price the city paid Dieffenbach and his partners was less than the city’s appraised price.
To make up the difference between what the sellers wanted and the building’s assessed value, Dieffenbach agreed to reimburse the city in the form of a statue and fountain.
The $25,000 statue will be a life-size bronze of one of Everett’s founding fathers, Henry Hewitt. The statue will go somewhere along Hewitt Avenue in a place picked by the city or the public facilities district set up to operate the center.
Dieffenbach also will spend $30,000 on constructing a "large, decorative fountain" on the grounds of the proposed events center, according to the sales agreement.
"The city shall arrange for or permit Dieffenbach to be identified as a donor in a location at or near the base of the statue and fountain or any other public amenity funded by Dieffenbach’s contributions in the same manner as other donors are identified for these items," the sales agreement said.
"He’s donated $55,000 back to the city over and above the purchase price," Soine said.
Dieffenbach, who did not return a phone call, also paid $30,000 for a license for 12 of the center’s suite seats when those seats become available.
Dieffenbach is one of four property owners who have sold their downtown buildings to the city so it can destroy them to make way for the proposed center.
The center is to be built on a two-block area in downtown bounded by Hewitt Avenue to the north, Broadway to the east, Oakes Avenues to the west and Wall Street to the south.
Besides buying the buildings, the city would buy the land under the center for an estimated $10 million out of the city’s capital fund, and then the land will be leased to the public facilities district.
But some property owners are refusing to sell. The city has enacted its right to eminent domain so the city can buy the land. This legal process allows cities and other public entities to condemn land in the name of the public good.
City staff continue to negotiate with the dozen or so property owners who have refused to sell.
The arena, funded largely by a sales-tax rebate, is expected to open in fall 2003. In order to receive the tax rebate money, construction on the arena must begin by January 2003.
You can call Herald Writer Theresa Goffredo at 425-339-3097
or send e-mail to goffredo@heraldnet.com.
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