Guest Opinion
By Art DeMuro

Reed College’s decision to demolish the Sellwood Trolley Barns, instead of preserve them as neighbors wished is the prototypical example of historic property owners turning their backs on the public good. Reed had the option to preserve the property and sell for a handsome profit. Instead, the community will lose a treasure eligible for the National Register of Historic Places–five brick buildings with 400-foot-long spaces that soar over 30 feet high. According to the State Historic Preservation Office, the Barns are “one of only a few, and the most intact example of this building type in the state.”

Reed said that the environmental contamination found under the buildings could lead to future liability and therefore chose total demolition to clean the site before rebuilding. Contrary to the common perception that regulatory agencies offer only impediments and delays, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has created programs that recommend solutions to environmental problems. There are many examples where DEQ has allowed subsurface contamination that is proven to be stationary, offering no threat to humans or the environment, to remain and be capped by an existing building.

In other words, if the contamination is not causing harm, DEQ allows it to remain. In fact, one DEQ official stated that he had no recollection of DEQ ever requiring a historic building to be demolished in order to remediate contamination.

Legislation has even created Prospective Purchaser Agreements which halt the progression of legal liability, making it legally safe to redevelop these “brownfield” sites. This pragmatic program has spawned countless successful redevelopments all over the country.

Reed was presented with a win-win alternative: Sell the Sellwood Trolley Barns for a large profit to a preservation developer, thereby fulfilling its fiduciary obligation to its donor, simultaneously retaining this historic structure and respecting the pleadings of the neighborhood as well as multiple elected officials, including the mayor, multiple city commissioners and a county commissioner.

In the fall, Portland’s City Council will consider adoption of the Historic Resources Code Amendment (HRCA), to establish regulations mandating extending demolition delay and authorizing potential demolition denial. HRCA can protect irreplaceable historic resources, such as the Trolley Barns. As a balance to this regulatory expansion, the council will consider offering owners additional preservation incentives that improve the feasibility of redevelopment.

The rights of private property ownership are basic tenants of our society. However, some properties carry additional responsibilities and significance. The public good is a concern that influences regulations. Traffic regulations curb unrestricted personal freedoms in exchange for public safety. Public health concerns influence smoking bans, a sacrifice of personal freedom in exchange for a healthier environment for non-smokers. Historic buildings that represent significant historic events, exemplify unique architectural design or memorialize the contributions of significant individuals speak to the social history which extends beyond the individual property owner–social history which belongs to an entire neighborhood, community, state or nation. In these cases, it is not only the public’s right to protect its interests but its responsibility to future generations. The HRCA is being written to incorporate those protections.

Demolition and building new is often simpler and cleaner–no constrains from existing conditions, no due diligence for inspections, and in Reed’s case, no additional environmental paperwork. Even an institution as socially conscious as Reed chose the simpler route, and demonstrates why demolition delays and potential denial authority are necessary. They force a property owner of a significant historic resource to consider all redevelopment alternatives.

Hundreds of cities across the nation have such demolition delays and denial authority. Our city, state and federal governments have established substantial financial and tax incentives to encourage and facilitate historic preservation. The city of Portland is considering even more to make preservation an easier choice for owners. Often owners of historic properties are not familiar with these programs and they need time to understand them and be introduced to professionals that do. These programs equitably compensate owners for the premiums in time and money that are required for redevelopment.

Not every historic building deserves to be saved. And not every significant building can be saved. However, our treasures should not be sacrificed without good cause or for lack of information or time.

Soon, Sellwood will have 80 more row houses instead of a piece of our history and an example of Portland’s progressive and extensive turn-of-the-century mass transit system.

Remember the needless loss of this site later this year when the City Council considers HRCA. This ordinance respects and encourages owners of landmark properties to preserve them and adds teeth to Portland’s preservation policies. The current regulatory bias facilities demolition instead of preservation. Without a change in the ordinance, the public will be forced to rely on begging historic property owners to do the right thing, and we saw how effective that was with Reed College.

Art DeMuro is a member of the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission and is the president of Venerable Properties, Inc., a historic commercial redevelopment company that was the rejected buyer in the Trolley Barns transaction.

By S. Renee Mitchell

Reed College had the opportunity to endear itself to its Southeast Portland neighbors. But the wealthy institution, which prides itself on spitting out intellectually creative types, is acting like a scaredy-pants.

Despite months of reassurances otherwise, Reed recently decided to let the state’s last remaining streetcar garage be demolished. The 92-year-old landmark, on the southern edge of the Sellwood neighborhood, is a rare legacy of the original streetcar system that was critical to Portland’s early development.

“There are no other ones left that are intact as this one,” says David Skilton, a specialist at the state Office of Historic Preservation. “This is absolutely the best example in the state.”

He says the trolley barn, which borders Waverley Country Club, meets the criteria to make it eligible for the national Register of Historic Places.

And although the building is sitting on a smorgasbord of contaminated soil, even the contaminated soil experts–the folks at the state Department of Environmental Quality–say there are ways to deal with that.

If you’re creative. If you care about preserving the precious few relics of the city’s past. If you’re not a scaredy-pants.

“They knew how much this meant to the neighborhood and they didn’t even call,” says Eileen Fitzsimons, a 23-year Sellwood resident. “They just signed the papers and then called us three days later.”

Sellwood folks think Reed weaseled out of the chance to save the building by blaming a consultant’s recommendation that Reed clean up the site before a developer builds townhouses. “We don’t want in the future for some contaminant charge to come back,” Reed spokeswoman Wendy Shattuck says.

Art DeMuro, president of Venerable Properties, says he had tried to work that out. He was one of two developers willing to pay $2.5 million for property that has been given to Reed as a gift. But only his company was interested in saving the building.

Venerable was willing to negotiate with the state to limit Reed’s liability. And it wanted to buy the as is–and save Reed about $800,000 in cleanup costs–even before required testing to see whether the contamination might spread.

Given those assurances, DeMuro says, he thought negotiations were moving along until his attorney got a faxed letter.

“I’m broken-hearted and broken-walleted over this,” DeMuro says. “It just hurts ’cause Reed didn’t have to go this route.”

The school acknowledges that it could have done a better job pacifying its critics. But they were so darned emotional about this issues that Reed eventually felt justified in ignoring them and doing what it wanted to do.

“We could have, and yes, we probably should have, contacted the neighbors to let them know of the final sale decision prior to making it public, and for this we are sorry,” Shattuck says. “They had been so very heated with us for so many months… that frankly, they would probably be just as inflamed had we made that gesture.”

Skilton’s office, meanwhile, is trying to figure out whether there’s a chance that federal soil-clean rules could be used to delay the demolitions.

“We can slow it down, but that’s about all we can do,” Skilton says. The intent, he says, is “to say: ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ “

For an honest answer to that question, though, Reed would have to see beyond its own privileged reflection.

S. Renee Mitchell: 503-221-8142; rmitch@news.oregonian.com

Reed College decides the building must go to clean up contamination on the property

By Wade Nkrumah

A landmark 92-year-old former streetcar garage in the Sellwood neighborhood will be demolished, despite strong neighborhood opposition.

Demolition will allow soil at the site to be cleaned of contaminants. It will also pave way for the development of up to 81 town house on the property, which Reed College sold last week for $2.5 million to developers Jim Morton and Drew Prell.

Wendy Shattuck, public affairs director for the college, said the high level of contamination at the site leaves no choice but to level the building.

“The advice that we’re getting–and our understanding–is that the only way to really clean it is to get in there and under there and move that soil,” she said.

She said site cleaning would take about a year and cost the college about $800,000, which will come from sale proceeds.

“So, that’s where we are,” Shattuck said, “and it’s quite disappointing from nay perspectives because we had really hoped that there would be no harm to that building.”

Another bid

The college upset Sellwood leadership and some residents by negotiating with Morton and Prell, who planned to build new town houses at the expense of the approximately 90,000-square-foot garage. Neighborhood leaders earlier this spring pressed the college to sell the 2.5-acre site to Venerable Properties. That company also offered $2.5 million and pledged to save the former garage as part of a larger redevelopment.

The property, at the southern edge of Sellwood, bordering the Waverley Country Club, is several miles from the college’s Southeast Portland campus on the northern edge of the Eastmoreland neighborhood. It was part of a gift to the college three years ago.

Robert Schmidt, president of Sellwood-Moreland Improvement League neighborhood association, said Reed could have been more sincere in its dealings with the neighborhood and Venerable.

“I would like to get an explanation directly from Reed about why the decision was made,” Schmidt said. “The way that was done is really unprofessional, and… I think it’s very discourteous to their neighbors. We’ve tried so hard to save this building.”

Soil contamination was discovered in a study conducted for Reed by Hahn and Associates, an environmental consulting firm that specialized in cleanup of hazardous materials.

Oil 12 feet down

Roger Brown, a principal with Hahn, said the firm recommended a “complete” cleanup of the site, which he said requires demolishing the building. He said hydraulic oil found as deep as 12 feet beneath the building’s floor had contaminated up to 13,000 tons of soil.

Brown said the oil contains carcinogenic compounds. He said other contaminants found were metal lead and toluene.

Brown discounted capping, a process that involves building a concrete cap on the site that would protect people and the environmental from the contaminated soil. He said capping would not be a viable option for residential development because of a “perception of contamination below the floor, as well as there’s some uncertainty as to how this would be view by DEQ.”

Still, Art DeMuro, Venerable president, said he thought capping could have been used to save the building.

Alan Kiphut, manager of environmental cleanup and tanks program at the Department of Environmental Quality, said capping is a potentially viable option for the Reed site. But, he said, he did not endorse capping in conversation with DeMuro about cleanup.

“We talked about it in the contest of general approach” to clean up, Kiphut said. “We talked about whether or not buildings can serve as caps that have contamination problems. And the answer is ‘yes’ in many cased, if not most.”

More study called for

However, he said, the department had not collected much information on the site when DeMuro approached the agency. He said more ground-water and soil samples would be need to determine whether capping the site would be sufficient.

“There need to be more investigation done at the site to really determine what the contamination levels are…and whether or not it’s moving say, from underneath the building into the ground water,” Kiphut said.

“And assuming that it’s note then there’s no reason to tear down at building to clean up some contamination under it if it’s not posing a threat to public health or the environment.”

The argument to preserve the former streetcar garage building centers on history for many in Sellwood, where a mix of antique stores and old Portland wood frame houses creates a bucolic, small-town setting.

The streetcar garage stands among the few connections to Sellwood’s grittier past. Just west of the garage is a building that has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been converted into offices. It shares a block with 10 town houses that have been built in the past several years.

Now Sellwood’s southern section south of Tacoma Street and west of 17th Avenue is poised for development of as many as 132 town houses under three proposals being reviewed by the city.

Still many residents think loss of the streetcar garage building and development of town houses there would be a jarring change in the feel of that area.

“It’s just kind of a shabby way to treat people,” Schmidt said.

Wade Nkrumah: 503-294-7627; wadenkrumah@news.oregonian.com