smell you later Gintz Group

Second sad day in two weeks. Lets just fill it with another taxpayer funded parking garage, that helped Tacoma revitalize in the 70’s…didn’t it?

Yes. Woo hoo. 13th will be open again.

But at what cost!?!?

Total failure of leadership, both public and private. I’m disgusted.

For once, I agree with RR.

Gintz was able to save the porn house.

win some lose some.

We don’t know who owns the property? If Gintz didn’t close on the purchase from the owner then Gintz just comes in and builds a new building on a plot of land that the city just cleared for them.

If Gintz owns it, then they pay the 600k and build a new building without all the expense of rennovating a historic building.

Trying to be optimistic here. There’s no way this is going to sit as a vacant lot. Is there?

I don’t think I’ll ever get the image of the Fun Circus out of my mind.

What happens to the bricks? I imagine most will be too broken to reuse, but could the good ones be salvaged and used in the new construction on that site as a kind of hat-tip to the Luzon? And doing something with that tree – I think a lot of us have grown a bit fond of it. There are possible silver linings to everything …

I guess we consider a City loan offer of $1.65 million in UDAG funds to be a sign of apathy or lack of leadership? Why don’t we hold the financial institutions and private sector as accountable when these deals fall through… Seems to me Gintz group had a lot of passion about this and I’m sure the City Council knows who Burnham and Root are, Exit 133 has been talking about them for the last year, not to mention that we have a pretty active historic preservation community… How many times are we going to hear about a deal falling apart to save a treasure or redevelop a toxic site because of a lack of accessible financing? In my mind, once again, that is at the heart of the issue here.

miscolored bricks perhaps buy I could make a great meat smoker/BBQ oven out of them. I’d tear out my garage and have that assembled in no time.

AC, you might think twice about cooking in anything made of those bricks, given the high probability they have lead-based paint on them…

miscolored bricks perhaps buy I could make a great meat smoker/BBQ oven out of them.

The asbestos (which was mentioned repeatedly in today’s meeting) would give everything a nice spicy kick.

A question for the old timers, what was the name of the lunch counter in the old Greyhound station? For the really hardcore, what was the name of the lunch counter at the former Trailways on Pacific, now home to Chuckals.

Tacoma needs some good news. Badly. Something to take the focus off decay, vacancy and abandoned projects. Something that actually materializes with real progress on the ground.

The Joy building is looking good.

Any one bummed out aught to walk around UPS or UW Tacoma. The hustle and bustle of young adults will cheer you up.

@drizell:
This isn’t a real great time for private donors rescuing public services. Just ask Philly. That’s why government is important- it’s obligated by law to provide for the public good, whereas all we can do about private donors is hope they’re feeling generous.

I agree with Andrew and RR Anderson. Yes it was beautiful and yes, it WAS designed by very talented architects. It WAS a great building back in the day, way back in the day, but it hasn’t really been a building for a long time now, its been a decaying shell. Hopefully, someday a new architect, yet to be discovered can build something great there. That would be ideal, but even if that doesn’t happen, we have to come to grips with the fact that this is no longer a building. It is a beautiful pile of old building materials that is blocking the road.

Do any of the knock-it-down-and-build-something-new folks believe there will be a new building on this site any time soon? There are a lot of empty dirt lots and parking lots in downtown Tacoma that are effectively shovel ready. I have a feeling that this soon-to-be-dug hole in the ground will remind us of this debacle for a very long time.

My view:

Gintz: “we think we can rennovate that historic Luzon building with a tricky financing package.”

City of Tacoma: “That’s great, its a historic building – you must keep its look and feel to ensure everyone in Tacoma is happy”

Gintz: Everything is in place, we’ve got 1/2 the building leased so the lender and the city will give us the $$ we need to rennovate the building”

Ben Benanke: “the sky is falling…all is lost”

Company that signed lease: “never mind, we don’t want it anymore”

Lender: “no tenant, no $$”

Gintz: “ugh…if only it weren’t historic and we could just tear it down”

City of Tacoma: “we hearby declare this building a hazard. We are closing a street to drive home this point. If the owner doesn’t fix it we will just tear it down and bill them a fraction of what it would have cost them to rennovate it”

Gintz: “what a lucky break, now we can build something new”

PS – if you are afraid of eating lead and asbestos, you belong in Bellevue not Tacoma.

Maybe Tacoma will learn her lesson with the Luxon and not wait so long to save the Murray Morgan Bridge. Probably not though. When it comes to Tacoma I’m not optimistic.

It would be a true slam in the face to the original architects if we were to be so unoriginal as to go back to the original plans for some fake facade to make it appear historic. That would be like losing a pet and then cloning it instead of greiving and trying to pick up the pieces and move on. I can’t stand fake nostalgia or things designed to look historical…Either it is historical (built during a specific time period) or it isn’t.

PS The idea that Tacomas should have to be more accepting of lead and asbestos than anyone else in the state or country is…unacceptable.

I’m sure there is some gain here for Gintz, but ultimately they will have to pay the cost of the demo. And – they did invest hundreds of thousands into engineering work (yup, must not have cared) and wanted to get those costs back out of it. Lest ye forget they recieved a real low ball offer – and that coming after the “buyer” had set themselves up as the last minute hero to swoop in and save the Luzon.

Oh and Mr. Altered Chords: suggesting I should move to Bellevue for my crack about the brick paint was just mean. I think the fact that I garden in a community plot contaminated with smelter-poo establishes by Tacoma cred just fine.

@38
Fantastic irony, almost as good as TAGRO
Good bye Luzon, hello Class A.

I remain unconvinced this building is in danger of collapsing. It is a shame how one person’s complaint can set in motion the demise of a uniquely singular historic building. The Luzon is greener than any building constructed today – including the new one now sitting across the street from the Luzon.

…just a bunch of miscolored bricks.
–Andrew @18

Saw the demolition company laying the groundwork for destruction early this morning…won’t last the week.

[Still fuming too much to write clearly]
Sad. I worked on the ongoing Seattle Furuya-Corgiat restoration for a several months (also Legacy Windows of Tacoma, and other Tacoma experts you would recognize are consulting), and to this untrained eye the level of deterioration seems comparable. Leaking roof, fire damage, crumbling brick, bulging brick wall. Still the Seattle Landmark is being saved. Thanks to a dedicated owner (from Spokane) and a lot of structural reinforcing and leveling and new stair and elevator shaft, as mentioned above. www.vintageseattle.o…
The Eagles, FUMC, Luzon, much of Pac-Ave during the proud “Urban Renewal” years, FAIL… At least the Crescent was a partial win, and it is hoped the Elks will be one for the win column. With at least two great historic preservation organizations, Landmarks Commission, renewed pride in Tacoma, blow by blow we still lose these essential pieces of the fabric of our history.
The Watch List: www.historictacoma.n…

I am confused why everyone is upset that we are taking down another empty brick eye-sore in downtown. Living downtown, when I stand on the roof of the building I live in and look at every old, vacant, brick buidling I wonder how close this city is to becoming one big slum. Improve, innovate, build a new identity, the current one we are holding on to is obviously not working.

Also how is a crumbling building filled with asbestos, lead paint and who knows what other toxic materials, greener than the new pacific building?

gus, the reason why the luzon, or any existing building, is greener than the pacific plaza, or any building being constructed, is 1) because it takes energy (carbon footprint) to demolish a building, and 2) it takes energy to build a new building.

so, no matter how efficiently a new building operates, the energy it saves by being so efficient will never make up for the energy expended in its construction. this includes energy invested manufacturing the components of the building, transporting these to the building site, and the energy expended assembling these materials into a building.

if the building replaces another building that has been torn down, you add the original energy investment in the original building’s construction, as well as the energy expended in demolition (and transport of the debris to the landfill) to the equation.

when those are added up, from a carbon footprint standpoint, rehabilitating and occupying an existing building is several times “greener” than building a nice shiny new efficient LEED certified building.

when you add the fact that the building is listed on the national, state and tacoma registers of historic places, it makes even less sense to demolish.