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Tom's Take
Crowdsourcing Hometown Revitalization
Grays Harbor provides visitors a wonderful gateway to our coastal community. The local history of the area can not be missed as a traveler arrives at the city limits with the welcoming Rotary log building and waterfront park. along the way there is a variety of statues and sculptures that remind us of our rich timber history and we have a panoramic view of the fishing industry from the bridges. Sadly, the buildings in our community do not reflect the pride we take in our community. From the wilting General Store in Oakville, to the lemon eyesore of the Morck hotel in downtown Aberdeen and the now nearly condemned Elma Theater, there is a need for our aging buildings to either undergo massive reconstruction or demolition. A few of the local buildings are so rich in local history that community members may feel strongly attached to them almost like members of their family. And some of the community movie theaters are rare historical gems that reflect the beauty and grace of a time when people gathered in a common area. The term for recycling buildings is called Adaptive Re-Use. The focus of this page has been largely upon local buildings within the Grays Harbor area. There are examples of buildings that we believe would be suitable (and desirable) to adapt for a current use within their respective communities. You find below many of the examples posted by our group.
Safeway store in Hoquiam
portion of the building is still open and
there are offices above the store. The old Safeway building is owned by Mark Swanson a local businessman. When it came up for sale several years ago it was purchased by the Swanson brothers, their supermarket is located two blocks from the site. The Safeway building is currently for rent. The Swanson brothers were very supportive of the new YMCA project. One idea for utilizing these buildings is an art commons. The vision includes an area where musicians could gather and play unamplified music, a pottery area with kilns, a silver smith/metal working area, fly tying, spinning yarn and knitting, painting, poetry reading and writing, and a coffee area for socializing. There could be a room for meetings, demonstration and lessons. Local artists could mentor new artist. This would bring people together
Safeway Store (above) and Lavogue's Department Store and promote artistic growth in our community there are many craftsman in our area. The commons could be supported by membership much like the YMCA. Grants could be written to get some need repairs and restroom facilities. There could be a gift shop for artists to place their work and a portion of the profit could go to the commons. This venture would also bring people to the down town area and could possibly support an art store, the 7th street theater http://www.7thstreettheatre.com/history.html and local restaurants.
The historically renovated Hoquiam library is just 2 blocks away. http://www.trlib.org/hoquiam.htm The library has meeting rooms that could support activities such as author hours, book signings and writing workshops. Also within walking distance is the former Eagles building. It has recently been renovated and is ready for a restaurant and shops. There is a walking path behind these buildings that is a loop that circles the two bridges and connects these buildings with the Polson Museum, Farmers market and the Eighth street landing. It would be a great place to meet with friends, take a walk and enjoy some history.
Hoquiam Aquatic Center
The Hoquiam Aquatic Center was purchased three years ago by a private enterprise. The pool was in not in good condition and could no longer be used as a community pool. There is a business occupying the upstairs balcony area. How to best use the pool space is the question. Because of the extra high ceilings and after consultation with experts, it appears the best way to heat the area is to install radiant heat in the floor before the cement is poured. Existing natural gas boilers can be used to provide heat for the radiant floor. Access to the main space is via a twelve by fourteen foot roll up door in the rear of the building. This newly installed door allows for large trucks and trailers for deliveries and shipments.
The main floor also includes two locker rooms complete with bathrooms and showers. A lobby and entryway are additional besides the stairway. Two storage rooms and a small laundry room complete the main floor area. The second floor is only accessible by the stairway. There is over eight thousand square feet on the main floor and an additional three thousand square feet on the second floor.
It is located centrally in the downtown corridor of Hoquiam.
The question now is what is a good use of the space. Would it be a good area to develop for community activities? Warehouse storage? Business development? Expansion for growth of the current business that occupies the building? Roller rink?
This is the former aquatic center from the street side showing the front entrance. 
This is the pool that is filled in with rock and topped with dirt. It has not yet been covered with cement. The plan is to install radiant heat in the floor. It is too costly to heat from the top because the ceilings are twenty two feet high. 
The second story balcony meeting room overlooks the pool area. The big green pipes are the air circulating ductwork. Ben Winkelman is a city councilman in Hoquiam and an initial member of the Hoquiam Business Association who commissioned the Berkand Associates Report for the city's Economic Development Plan which you can view at: http://www.cityofhoquiam.com/hometown/hh_draft_12.06.07.pdf
There are people with dollars who are looking for the right ideas. The gas station across the street is also available and there is a view of the waterfront from the back of LaVogues which may also be available soon. Hoquiam just received a designation of Historical Preservation District which they fought hard to obtain. One of the benefits is that you can write off expenses incurred for capital improvements if you agree to keep the building in the original era. John Larson of the Polson Museum has access to pictures from the Jones Photo Collection where he can find pics from the old buildings so you know what it originally looked like. (especially helpful for the LaVogue building maybe). Those in charge of the renovation project are actually looking for members to form a Group Think Tank (guess they don't know it is a commons) to meet and submit ideas to the Developer's Forum Committee. They are looking for wild and crazy ideas and we might just have some for them! To find out zoning issues or to get direction, to talk to zoning and planning people, or the GH Economic Council, Brian Shay would be our contact but Ben would be happy to direct anyone to the right person for answers to any questions. This site has the info about the historical preservation district: http://www.cityofhoquiam.com/hometown.php
He is going to tell his team what we are doing and he is excited to see what ideas we may be dreaming up and knows they will be too. So maybe this won't just be an exercise but actually be an instrument to bring about some positive changes in our area. He wants to see it when we are ready to show it!
The renovations and recycling of buildings should be accompanied by historical markers and information about the property. Most of the young people in our communities have no idea about what has happened right where they have grown up. People don't remember that Heron Street use to be a redlight district and that during WWII the South Aberdeen bridge had a Gunnery Station to protect it's harbors. Our infamous past, major shipping port and a prosperous logging industry make Grays Harbor a culturally rich area. Oregon does a wonderful job with historical markers along the coast. Each significant or interesting event or building is marked to inform visitors of what happened years ago, right where they stand today. Local families could educate their children on Sunday drives or stop to take a look at the newly renovated buildings creating awareness and ownership of their own communities. Through historical sites and buildings, community members recalling days gone by, and citizens sharing stories and experiences, all will help bring about a resurgence of pride. Tourists stop at the buildings, attend a play at the Elma Theatre, D&R or the Morck hotel and leave with a visual memory of amazing buildings and the history that goes along with it. Recalling a town or community they visited on a trip and sharing that history with a family member or friend will generate a buzz increasing interest to visit our area. Grays Harbor County is working hard to build economic development and growth. Hopefully with bright future and strongly represented past Grays Harbor County can transform not only industry and buildings, but a sense of pride.
The Morck Hotel and the D & R Theater
The Morck Hotel
and the D & R Theater are two historical sites that I can not wait to see fixed up and operating again. The Morck used to
be a very fancy Hotel and restaurant in her day and now the new owner also wants to have little shops in with the hotel. This would be a great commons for people not only visit but to see how the hotel used to look in 1924. This would also include Doormen , Bell hops and waitresses wearing kilts. John Yonich is going to bring back the D & R Theater as it was in the 1920s-era. He wants to be able to have the theater hold live concert style events. Along with this he wants to set up a miniature sized Pike Place Market along side the D & R. This would bring back a commons area that Aberdeen has lost and is now in hopes of getting back. Elma Theater
The Elma Theater, located in the small community of Elma, Washington was first opened in 1928 as a state of the art performance hall and movie theater. The 600 seat theater was originally named the Graham Theater, with five dressing rooms, an orchestra pit and hot and cold water. The ceiling featured an artistic fresco painting. Fresco is an Italian art form of mural painting, where earth pigments are applied directly to wet lime plaster.
The theater was equipped with stereo sound, and 20 minute projector reels. It featured live performances with an over stage suspension capable of 16 scene changes per performance. The grand opening was December 31, 1928 with a performance by local artists. Detailed history of performances at the theater from 1928 to 1982 are scarce.
From 1983 to 1991 the theater was owned by Daryl J. Lund of Chehalis, Washington with hopes to reopen the theater for school plays, performances and other public events.
In 1991 the Elma Theater (home of Elma Children’s Theater Association) was purchased by Kingsley Hall with ambitions to restore and renovate the sadly damaged interior. Many volunteers worked tirelessly to reopen the theater for its first performance in June 1991, Chicken Fried Diner produced by Patrick Dennis Hart. For many seasons the Elma Theater was home to more imported live venues from all over the world. The Washington State Arts commission helped arrange and book featured presentations such as: The Duttons, A Fine & Pleasant Misery an
d Ain’t Misbehavin.[ii] Assistance from the Washington State Arts commission helped increase attendance and booking conferences. Local memories of the theater consist of: a place for many first dates, first performances and a place to watch free cartoons on Wednesdays. Another common memory, the temperature inside the building was cold. The theater had a long standing policy of adults’ only being allowed to be seated in the balcony. Kids always tried to distract or sneak past employees monitoring the stairway. The high school drama and choir departments often performed at the theater, creating fond memories for many students first performance. Thru 2007 many annual events have included showings of Alice in Wonderland, The Nutcracker, and The Scrooge. For many in the community the theater was like everything else in small towns, it has always been a part of the town.
The theater most recently has been the home for rehearsals and performances by Dancers Unlimited, and students of the Children’s Theater Association. Members of the Children’s Theater Association were given scholarships when they reached the 8th Grade. The premise of granting scholarships before graduation was to ensure students would receive their award in the event they moved out of the area before their high school graduation.
Minimal funding has been provided by hotel taxes, small financial and some material donations. For 2008 volunteers are continuously working to renovate and repair required damaged as ordered by the City of Elma Fire Marshal. All 2008 scheduled events are on hold until necessary repairs are completed.
Options for non profit restoration projects are available through many organizations. The National Preservation Partners is a non-profit organization with objectives to assist with preservation, restoration and reuse of historic building in the United States.[iii] The organization offers technical advice to building owners. They provide guidance to owners who are trying to work their way through the difficult policies, procedures and incentives in reusing historic buildings.
A beneficial learning opportunity for communities and students of interior design has been formed in several towns in Kansas. Students have been inspired by a theatrical adage to visualize the restoration of dormant theaters and opera houses. The students are enrolled in a semester long program on advanced architectural interior design. Each team is required to establish a program; encompassing a demographic study, site history, and information for code and regulation goals for the project. The students have a fresh perspective, providing a vision for the community to reflect on the cultural history of their communities.[iv] Often the student projects are presented to the mayor’s office with anticipation to eventually start a fund raising campaign to restore the historic theaters. The National Endowment for the Arts provides funding sources to bring the Arts to all Americans. The NEA provides outreach opportunities and grants to help with preservation and/or conservation work on nationally significant intellectual and cultural artifacts, and historic structures and sites.[v]
Preserving historic landmarks such as the Elma Theater requires restoration skills, research, commitment and most importantly money. Finding funds and community support is often difficult in small towns like Elma. Applications for state grants, Save Americas Treasures Funding Programs, tax incentives, loans, local fund raisers and donations are a few of the available resources that could be used to help fund this project.
Historic theaters serve the whole community and a successful restoration project must have the support and involvement of the entire community.
Bibliography
Examples from Outside Grays Harbor
Some interesting adaptations for buildings in other areas can be found here.
Recycling buildings is typically a Herculean undertaking, particularly if the building is large, historical, or environmentally challenged in some fashion. To restore or adapt buildings often takes the joint effort both the private and public sectors. The actual work requires the efforts of artisans and skilled craftsman ranging from architects to wallpaper hangers. Building codes are a formidable challenge in many cases, especially when adapting an industrial building to a residential or community use. Financing the undertaking often requires public financing for large structures, while private funds may manage nicely for some unique smaller buildings.
The term “brownfield” describes buildings that are “abandoned or underutilized commercial or industrial properties that usually have some environmental contamination.” Our cultural heritage often resides in the structures we build, both in their original purpose, and in the identity imbued by their presence and use. Many national heritage sites contain buildings restored for historical preservation and study. Some of the most famous buildings in the world exemplify the best in building restoration; The White House, The Kremlin, Buckingham Palace, and The Parthenon are all structures restored after the ravages of time, fire, and war. Adaptive re-use changes the purpose of the structure of a building. There are many instances of such re-use; in Tacoma, we can look to the Washington State History Museum (formerly Union Station in Tacoma), The University of Washington Tacoma Campus (formerly commercial buildings), and the Tacoma Police Headquarters (formerly Costco) as worthwhile examples of adaptive re-use.
There are many examples of cities in the US and Canada taking steps to revitalize their communities. Cities have taken steps to create full scale twenty year comprehensive plans to more simple projects such as tree plantings and flowers planters. However, all have a common goal they want to create a vibrant and thriving environment that is supportive of both its citizens and business community.
A website entitled Smart Growth (www.smartgrowth.org) seems to embrace the idea of revitalizing cities. One of their principles is to foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place. The idea is that the vision for development fits the community and places emphasis on constructions and preservation of buildings that meet the vision and fits the community. This is a very unique website which has many other unique principles as well as information regarding what cities across America are doing to create their development plan based upon where they are but more importantly on their vision for their future and how to ensure that the communities create meet their core values.
The city of Los Angeles has created a Community Beautification Grant program. The program concept was based upon a grant program designed in Seattle, Washington. The program has an $800,000 budget which is overseen by the Board of Public Works. They provide on a competitive basis about 90 grants per year for up to $10,000 per grant. Each grant requires a dollar for dollar match. The funds are used for physical improvements such as tree plantings, murals, benches, flower planters, marquees, gardens, etc. The range of projects is truly amazing and for a small investment which is doubled because of the matching requirement many small but very aesthetic projects are taking place in the City of Los Angeles. A complete list of the 2007-2008 projects can be found at: http://www.lacity.org/bpw/ocb/nmf/0708-cbg-list.pdf
The city of Pottsville, Pennsylvania has taken a very strategic view within its comprehensive plan to address its plan for central business district revitalization. In Pottsville they, like many cities, have had a decline in activity and investments in its central business district. They created the Pottsville Area Development Corporation to oversee the central business plans. The Board has 27 members ranging from both public and private representatives and they oversee $1.8 million loan portfolio. In the past the funds have been used to finance 70 façade renovations and other improvements for new and existing businesses.
The city also took a large undertaking of connecting with its citizens to determine what they saw as assets, weaknesses and recommendations for the area. Based upon this information the city will continue to look as its comprehensive plan as well as tax structure and partnerships with private industry, non-profits and government agencies to continue is plan to revitalize its central business district. A full report on the City of Pottsville can be found at: http://www.ci.pottsville.pa.us/html/cp6.htm
Another example of local government and private business partnership was locate in Simi Valley, California. In an effort to invigorate and restore certain areas of their town the City Council has awarded four grants of approximately $80,000 to businesses to renovate older buildings in an effort to entice more businesses and customers to town. The grant funds are only a small fraction of the cost to renovate the buildings however in the case of Simi Valley it appears this small incentive is more than enough to lure business back into the area. The full story can be found at: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/feb/27/city-oks-80000-to-help-renovate-building
A unique program not necessarily targeted at businesses was found in Redding, California. They have created the Residential Incentive Package which is part of a larger revitalization plan for the city. This is also a partnership between private and public partnership. The residential package is focused on providing incentives to current owners to improve their properties as well as help new first-time homebuyers purchase a home in specific neighborhoods. At the time of the article they had helped two first time homebuyers, rehabilitated 17 home units and provided 46 paints vouchers to low and moderate income households. Additional information on what is occurring in the City of Redding can be found at: http://ci.redding.ca.us/cm/renovations.htm
The city of Vancouver, British Columbia has a program designed specifically for conversation of hits historic buildings. They have two specific financial programs targeted to building owners to help mitigate the costs of renovation. The first program is the Heritage Façade Rehabilitation Program which provides up to 50% of the cost to repairs, restore or enhance the façade of the building. Owners can receive up to a maximum of $50,000 per principal facade. The other program is the Heritage Building Rehabilitation Program which provides property tax exemption for up to ten years for structural and foundation repairs, seismic upgrades and façade rehabilitation. For further information on either program please visit: http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/planning/heritage/incentives.htm
In New York they have the Main Street Program. This is a state funded program to help communities revitalize their downtown areas by helping with building renovations, streetscape enhancements and downtown business or cultural anchors. It is a competitive process which has a maximum of $200,000 per recipient. New York State has completed four grant cycles and during this period they have awarded $33 million in grants to over 130 different communities with in the state. The program appears to have wide spread support because it not only addresses preservation of older buildings its also trying to renovate buildings that have been left to deteriorate back into vibrant and viable commercial and residential properties. A full write up on the program and communities that have received the funding call be located at: http://www.nymainstreet.org/index.php
The final program I reviewed was in the City of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. They have an Office of Economic Development and this office is to help businesses through technical assistance and financial programs. They have a number of programs aimed at helping businesses with their buildings and in an effort to ensure the economic vitality of the city. They have the Fund for Revitalization and Economic Development (FRED) program and one aspect of that program provides for low interest “gap” financing to remove slum and blight. They have a Façade Program to help provide low interest loans to business to restore storefronts and facades. They have a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) program to help businesses with taxes for new construction and rehabilitation projects. They have Enterprise Zone Incentives which provides tax credits for a number of different things but one being that businesses make qualified investments in rehabilitating, expanding or improving their buildings. They final program is they have the Bethlehem Loan Program which like many of the others has many different allowable uses but again it can be used to help businesses with their properties and renovations. A more in-depth on the City of Bethlehem’s Office of Economic Development can be located at: http://www.bethlehem-pa.gov/econ_dev/
Based upon the research I found a community plan summary for Grays Harbor. This report was done by Barney and Worth Inc. and it looked at thirty-five plan documents from different communities within the area on past and current economic development effort. It covers a wide range of topics from area transportation, to business development to education. Unfortunately the information didn’t provide the status of each plan but it might be a venue to shape the conversation on how to create a partnership between public and private entities regarding the restoration of buildings and the areas that surround them to not only draw businesses to the area but also the much need customer base. The community plans summary can be found at: http://graysharbor2020.com/planning.html
There are many different public and private partnerships being taken up around the U.S. to improve deteriorating buildings and communities. These were only a few examples of projects that I found in my research but I believe they showcase the many unique and innovative approaches there are to the subject. They all had in common one goal which was to restore a sense of community and pride through investments to improve and restore private and public buildings.
Restoration Resources
During the restoration of historical buildings, the labor of love can become a heartache when the project is managed poorly. Cost over-run, volunteers, contractors, safety codes are just a few of the issues that can make the project a nightmare. Everyone loves the nostalgia of our older buildings in Grays Harbor. Sadly, decay and structural damage may prevent some of them from being preserved in their original design. The ReStore in Olympia, WA may have those rare items that add that special finishing touch to a building restoration. Here is a brief tour of the Restore that demonstrates the variety of materials available. |
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