City can’t save Rookery

Demolition of two historic buildings in the middle of downtown Spokane is expected to begin by mid-July after an announcement Monday that the city has exhausted efforts to save them.

“It was always my hope that these buildings would be purchased and preserved for their historical significance,” Mayor Dennis Hession said in a news release, speaking of the 1934 Rookery and 1915 Mohawk buildings. “But that isn’t going to happen, and I want to thank all the parties engaged in multiple attempts to negotiate a purchase to renovate the property.”

The city intervened last fall to stop demolition of the two buildings on Riverside Avenue. The city went as far as offering to serve as an intermediary in a buy-and-sell agreement between owner Wendell Reugh and potential purchasers.

However, the city formally withdrew its offer to help in March after a developer failed to submit earnest money to close a deal.

Ron Wells of Wells & Co. in Spokane had submitted a purchase proposal to the city in February but was unable to match it with a $100,000 deposit after having difficulty getting commitments from investors for the $4.8 million purchase.

Despite the developments, discussions continued between the owner and potential developers. Wells said Monday that as recently as two weeks ago, he submitted an offer for $4 million with $500,000 down, but the offer was rejected.

“We’ve tried all kinds of different offers,” said Wells, who has been trying to put together a deal to buy the property since mid-2003. “I’m disappointed we could never put together something he would accept.”

Steve Gill, Reugh’s property manager, has said in the past that most of the offers submitted for the property required that Reugh carry too much of the financial burden.

“We’ve been to the altar many times,” Gill said of the pending demolition. “I think we’ll probably have to go through with it this time.”

An initial round of demolition in 2004 brought down smaller buildings on Sprague Avenue as well as the 1890 Merton Block building at Sprague and Howard.

Historic preservation advocates have campaigned to save the buildings for more than a year, circulating petitions, buying newspaper advertising and demonstrating on the sidewalks.

In contrast, businesses and individuals supporting demolition recently circulated a letter with 120 signatures of people concerned about the health risks due to the accumulation of pigeon feces on the property. Despite its intact façade, the Rookery building has gaping holes in its side, and the land beside it, fronting on Sprague Avenue, contains a pile of rubble and dirt.

“It’s totally unacceptable,” said Tom Power, a part owner in the Fernwell Building, the only building on the block Reugh doesn’t own. “It’s extremely distracting to our tenants and to our ability to build a quality neighborhood.”

The city’s news release says Reugh intends to start demolition as soon as it is legally possible. He needs to satisfy an asbestos abatement requirement with the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority before demolition may continue.

The release quotes Reugh as saying he plans to put the property up for sale after demolition. However, Gill said, the interim plan is to construct a surface parking lot.

“We’ll go ahead and finish up the parking lot because we don’t know how long it will take to conclude a sale,” Gill said. However, he said, “It’s always possible that someone would come along after we got the site graded and buy it.”