Rookery not saved yet

When Spokane city officials intervened to stop demolition of the historic 1934 Rookery and 1915 Mohawk buildings last fall, preservationists saw it as a victory to save the two venerable facades.

But city officials, in offering to resell the properties for private development, have not prohibited any future demolition by a prospective purchaser.

The city is only requiring that the winner in a current round of bidding not allow the land to become a surface parking lot.

According to the city’s request for proposals issued in January, the eventual purchaser could potentially buy the Mohawk and Rookery buildings, tear them down and erect a new building or buildings in their places.

On Monday, Ron and Julie Wells of Wells & Co., of Spokane, submitted the only response to the city’s request for purchase proposals on the $4.8 million property.

In documents released on Thursday, the Wellses said they plan to renovate the two historic buildings into condominiums and lower-level retail spaces at a cost of more than $6 million.

A second phase of the project could see construction of two new parking and residential towers, possibly as tall as 25 stories, on vacant land along Sprague Avenue, according to the proposal by the Wellses.

Spokane City Council members could consider the proposal as early as Monday’s regular council meeting.

Preservation advocates said they were dismayed when they learned that the city was not prohibiting demolition of the Rookery and Mohawk buildings and that the city apparently left open the possibility of demolition.

But preservationists said they believe that Wells, who renovated the Steam Plant along with other historic buildings in Spokane, would never tear down the Rookery and Mohawk buildings and will follow through on his proposal for renovation.

“We trust Ron Wells to do the right thing,” said Jacqui Halvorson of the Spokane Preservation Advocates, which spent more than $20,000 in a political fight to save the buildings from demolition.

She said her organization’s members and others in the public “weren’t fighting against a surface parking lot.” They were for saving the buildings, she said.

Mayor Dennis Hession, who as council president last November intervened to stop demolition of the buildings, said his primary concern was ensuring that the site not be turned into a parking lot, even though he hopes the buildings will be renovated.

“My primary goal here was to avoid a surface parking lot,” Hession said Thursday.

He said he wanted to give any potential purchaser “maximum flexibility” to achieve the goal of keeping the site from becoming empty, which he described as “the worst possible scenario.”

Hession, who intervened even as demolition had started, won council approval in November for the city to buy the property under threat of condemnation and resell it to a private developer as long as city tax funds were not put at risk.

The arrangement offers the current owner, Wendell Reugh, the possibility of tax advantages because of the condemnation threat.

City lawyers said that the threatened condemnation was based on the dilapidated condition of the buildings and not their historical significance, which was another reason that the request for proposals does not prohibit demolition.

In their proposal, the Wellses said, “The project will be a very highly visible component of downtown Spokane’s continued revitalization efforts” and will bring the two vacant buildings back to life with “new energy, investment and vitality for an emerging retail and downtown center.”