Clock is ticking for last of 21 Donovan homes

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, December 31, 2005

EVERETT – It’s the end of the line for a handful of historic homes in north Everett.

Once cozy hallmarks of the city’s mill era, 11 homes designed by Edward Donovan in the 1920s now sit empty amid heaps of mud and rubble.

As soon as two weeks from now, they will be gone completely.

The Everett City Council voted last week to vacate a block of Rockefeller Avenue and a parallel alleyway between 13th and 14th streets.

Eleven remaining homes in the historic Donovan District face demolition, probably within two weeks, to make way for Providence Everett Medical Center’s $400 million expansion project.

It was the final hurdle for Providence Everett Medical Center before it could spill into the block as part of a $400 million expansion in the heart of one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

The expansion will include a cancer treatment center that is expected to serve more than 2,500 patients in its first year.

It’s a great stride for the medical community, but a bitter loss for some northwest Everett residents who waged a public battle to save the Donovan District.

Now, their only comfort is a small park on the corner of 13th Street and Colby Avenue.

For more than a decade, the hospital has leased the half-acre lot to the Northwest Neighborhood Association for $1 a year, association Chairman Garik Hudson-Falcon said. Neither the city nor the hospital has any record of the lease.The city’s parks department has maintained the park for 14 years, city spokeswoman Kate Reardon said. It is listed on the city’s Web site as Northwest Neighborhood Park.

The hospital purchased the property in the late 1960s and intended to expand hospital facilities there.

When the city agreed to vacate a portion of Rockefeller Avenue and the parallel alleyway, it did so in exchange for the lot. Reardon said the property transfer is expected to be complete in February.

Then, neighborhood residents will appeal to the city to upgrade the park. The current features, a gazebo and playground equipment the neighborhood installed using grant money, are “woefully inadequate,” Hudson-Falcon said.

But for residents, even an upgraded neighborhood park doesn’t make up for a lost block chock-full of life: births, deaths, graduations and backyard barbecues, all just memories now, without a home.

“The Donovan people have given up a whole block of homes for a park three or four blocks away,” Hudson-Falcon said. “I’m hoping that the City Council and the hospital staff understand that there’s been a big sacrifice.”

The hospital did all it could to save the Donovan homes, hospital spokesman Mike Gaffney said. They were offered free to anyone who could move them.

Developer Steve Hager took 11 of the 22 homes. He moved them in three overnight shifts to create a miniature Donovan District east of Broadway. He plans to sell the homes for about $250,000 each.

Gaffney said he received more than 80 calls about the other homes, but no one followed through. The challenge of finding a nearby lot and orchestrating the expensive move proved too difficult.

Barring an 11th-hour savior, the remaining homes will be leveled.

Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.