SNOHOMISH – Some of the houses have peeling paint. A few have boarded-up windows. And the chimney on one is crumbling.
Even so, neighbors Carroll and Cherri Brown say they will be sad to see the row of historic houses in the 1600 block of Fifth Street removed to make way for a $63.8 million modernization of Snohomish High School.
“I’d like to see them all, even the little one, preserved,” Cherri Brown said, pointing to a 1939 cottage. “Snohomish, we’re a historical old town.”
The Snohomish School District will put all five houses and an apartment building up for bid this month for removal before resorting to demolition.
The oldest house dates to 1902, a Victorian-style two-story home that at one point was converted into apartments. Other houses were built in 1910, 1935, 1939 and 1959.
The two-story, five-unit apartment building went up in 1978.
Together, the buildings have a market value of about $730,000, according to Snohomish County property records.
“They’re not of the big historic nature you see up and down the avenues in the historic district. But they are period,” City Councilwoman Melody Clemans said. “It might be an opportunity for someone.”
Sawmill workers and their families likely lived in the smaller cottage-style houses when they first were built, said Victoria Harrington, president of the Snohomish Historical Society.
Their ramshackle conditions rob the buildings of some value. But that doesn’t mean they’re not worth restoring, Harrington added.
“So few of the little cottages are left because they’re all being added onto,” she said.
The district owns the apartment building and four of the houses. The district rented them out for several years until maintenance costs got too high, business director Karen Riddle said.
The district is finalizing the purchase of the fifth home, a red Craftsman-style bungalow, whose owners are building a new home elsewhere.
Removing the structures will open up the southwest corner of the high school property at Fifth Street and Avenue H East, allowing the district to use all 23 acres as it decides how to remake the 67-year-old campus.
The modernization is being funded through $141.6 million in bonds that voters approved last year. The money also will pay for a new high school on the former Cathcart landfill site.
School administrators have delayed the final design of the modernized high school in order to hold more community meetings this fall to gather input.
In the meantime, they want to prepare the site and could invite bids to demolish any remaining houses as early as the end of the month.
While there’s no doubt the Panthers’ campus needs to be modernized – with a hodge-podge of buildings from 1938 to 1999 – Clemans said she is interested in seeing the district’s renovation plans for the downtown school.
“We need to keep a sense about us, just as we want to save those homes,” Clemans said.
Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@ heraldnet.com.
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