City asks for month to save Rookery

Spokane City Council President Dennis Hession has asked a downtown building owner to give the city one month to find a buyer for the threatened Rookery and Mohawk buildings at Riverside and Howard.

By using his clout as a top city official, Hession hopes to orchestrate an 11th-hour deal to save the historic buildings through private redevelopment.

In recent days, Hession has submitted a proposed purchase contract to owner Wendell Reugh that would, in general terms, allow the city to act as intermediary in the transfer of nearly a block of downtown real estate for a negotiated price of $4.75 million.

The city must come up with a deal by the end of December.

“That’s enough time to pull it together and make it work,” said developer Ron Wells, who along with other developers had negotiated unsuccessfully for more than a year to purchase the property from Reugh.

Reugh in the meantime has been threatening to tear down the historic structures absent a sales agreement. An initial round of demolitions in 2004 was resumed on Nov. 8.

Hession convinced Reugh to halt demolition. Then, Hession won limited authority from the City Council last week to negotiate a deal.

Joanne Moyer of Spokane Preservation Advocates said the one-month reprieve “would give someone an opportunity to put together a group of investors.”

For more than a year, the SPA organization has campaigned to save the buildings by lobbying city officials, buying newspaper advertising and demonstrating on the sidewalks along the 1934 Rookery and 1915 Mohawk buildings.

Initially, Hession asked his City Council colleagues to let the city purchase the property directly from Reugh and then resell it over a period of some months. But council members balked at the idea of taking possession of the property without first receiving a commitment for private repurchase.

Councilman Al French won an amendment authorizing purchase negotiations, but only if a private purchaser was lined up to take the property off the city’s hands immediately. Council members said they didn’t want to risk any losses from holding the property, even though Hession and others argued the risks were minimal.

“We’re still talking to Wendell Reugh,” Hession said Tuesday. He said Reugh has been increasingly willing to allow the city a chance to preserve downtown’s historic assets.

“He would prefer to have money in his pocket,” Hession said.

Steve Gill, property manager for Reugh, confirmed the latest discussions and proposed contract submitted by Hession.

Wells said Tuesday he is forming a limited liability corporation to provide legal protection for individual investors and is continuing to seek partners. Plans call for a commercial and residential complex incorporating the two historic structures as well as new residential towers and a parking structure. He said some previous commitments by potential investors were withdrawn, and he is seeking other investors.

Demolition on the block initially began in October 2004 and culminated in the leveling of the 1890 Merton Block building at the northeast corner of Howard Street and Sprague Avenue, along with a line of smaller buildings along Sprague Avenue.

Reugh over the years had planned to remove existing buildings to make way for a 19-story office tower, but the project was scrapped.

The Fernwell Building at Riverside and Stevens is not owned by Reugh.