EVERETT — After nearly two decades of neglect, a Grand Avenue eyesore is getting a new lease on life.
A real estate investor, who says he specializes in buying and refurbishing fixer-uppers from distressed property owners and burned-out landlords, is bringing relief to some people who live in the city’s Bayview Neighborhood.
His latest project is a drab 107-year-old two-story house on the southeast corner of Grand and Everett avenues. The house has been without power or water, and intermittently occupied by transients, rats and pigeons since 1991.
By summer, “that place will be pretty amazing,” said Jeff Surridge, 35, who, along with his wife, Tami, owns JTS Property Solutions in Everett.
“In a nutshell, I’ve always had a passion for buying something ugly with a lot of Old World charm, fixing it up and making it nice again.”
The couple also is fixing up another rundown house right next door. That building dates to the 1950s.
The Surridges have flipped for a profit and rented out a few dozen properties over the past few years and remain bullish on Everett, preferring homes within a 11/2-mile radius of downtown.
Walking past bare wood-lath walls in an upstairs bedroom last week, Surridge said the house with views of Port Gardner and the Olympic Mountains was waist-high in debris just a few weeks earlier.
They removed 13 trailer loads of trash. Among the discoveries: the home’s missing deed.
Teresa Frye and her husband bought a two-story house a few doors away seven years ago when they fled sky-high real estate prices in King County.
They were pleased with the amount of house they could afford in Everett, but the abandoned house on the corner was always a source of concern, as are nearby boardinghouses for sex offenders, she said.
Frye recalls the discomfort she felt when she overheard the conversation of transients who were squatting in the boarded-up house, hidden behind overgrown trees.
“You don’t know what’s going on in there,” she said. “If they’re cooking meth, the whole block could catch on fire.”
Frye said she is encouraged by the progress made in the few weeks since the Surridges bought the house.
In addition to the 2,500-square-foot house, JTS Property Solutions also is restoring a smaller house next door. It was purchased from the same landlord.
“When I heard a young guy is going to fix up the houses, I thought ‘Is he nuts?’” Frye said.
Surridge insisted that despite the decay, the turn-of-the-century house still has “good bones” and clear fir beams with no knots.
“You would pay a mint to try to put it back again,” he said.
He said he paid about $360,000 for the two houses and plans to invest another $100,000.
The previous owner of the houses, Michael Walsh, 85, lived in the smaller of the two homes until recently.
The man was from Medicine Lake, Mont. Neighbors described him as a kind and caring person.
In 1972, he lived in the basement of the larger house and planed to fix it up.
“The structure was sound and the timber was good,” said the former owner’s son, Steve Walsh.
But a person he hired to work on the house walked away without finishing the job, he said. That was followed by other wrong turns. The house continued to decay.
For the past two decades, Walsh battled bad tenants and transients, his son said.
“It just got to where even boarding it up didn’t even help,” said Steve Walsh, who lives in Gold Bar. His father grew tired of finding kicked-in doors and sleeping bags. “It was drawing just too many people.”
The last straw came when someone ransacked his father’s home and stole his car while he was hospitalized for pancreatic cancer.
“They’re doing a good job,” Steve Walsh said of the Surridges and their general contractor, Quality Improvement. “He’s pretty good at what he does. I didn’t think he’d be able to salvage the place, but he’s doing a hell of a job.”
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
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