Burnham Building Collapsing in Tacoma, Washington
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Aug. 5, 2009
Tacoma's Luzon Building is the last on a former National Register-listed block that was de-listed and cleared in the 1980s for a development that never materialized.
Credit: Chip van Gilder
There are only three buildings on the West Coast designed by Chicago architects Daniel Burnham and John Root, and one is falling down. Last month the city of Tacoma, Wash., notified the owner of the 1891 Luzon Building that the property poses a "life safety hazard" and must be stabilized immediately.
Located in downtown Tacoma, the Luzon Building has been empty for the past two decades. Its former owner, Pierce County, did not maintain the four-story building, one of the first "skyscrapers" built during the city's railroad boom years.
"It's one of the most significant buildings in our city, both for its engineering as well as its association with the [Burnham & Root] firm," says Reuben McKnight, the city's historic preservation officer. "Tacoma's city slogan was 'the city of destiny,' and this building fits in with that."
The Luzon's destiny has been affected by the economic downturn. Tacoma-based Gintz Group bought the property in 2007 and lined up a loan and historic tax credits for an $8 million rehabilitation project but couldn't find tenants for two-thirds of the building, as required by investors. (Therefore, the project no longer has access to those tax credits.) After 15 months of searching, the company put the building back on the market in April.
This spring the city hired local structural engineering firm Swenson Say Fagét to evaluate the building. Its July 1 report concluded that "The Luzon Building is currently in a state of progressive collapse." The report recommends that the north exterior wall be braced immediately. Stabilizing the National Register-listed building would cost about $500,000, which the city would ask Gintz to pay.
"Theoretically, if we did not come up with a suitable solution, [the city] would shore the building up or demolish the building and then lien the property," Gintz says. In the meantime, Gintz says, "recent publicity ... has opened a lot of doors," and several nonprofit organizations have expressed interest in securing leases.
If Gintz can find enough tenants to move forward, the company hopes to develop a brand-new building within the Luzon shell of three stable walls. Tacoma's local preservation nonprofit has endorsed this unconventional plan. "There's not a lot of character left to the building," says Sharon Winters, president of the board of Historic Tacoma, which placed the Luzon on its "watch list" last October. "But the facade of the building, once it's shored up, would be restored to something like the original."
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Comments
Submitted by Brian at: August 5, 2009
I was reading a fascinating book about Burnham and Root which is written as a sort of murder historical novel. The two men were fascinating, especially Burnham, who helped design the Chicago Fair of the 1890s. I hope this building in Tacoma can be saved.