A Seattle company entered into an agreement with the owner of the Gastineau Apartments on Thursday to buy the burned-out buildings.<\/p>\n
Public Private Partnership LLC and James Barrett, the owner of the blighted apartments, have entered into a purchase of sale agreement, but \u201cthere aren\u2019t new owners yet,\u201d according to City Attorney Amy Mead. <\/p>\n
The goal of the project will be to \u201crestore not destroy\u201d the Gastineau Apartments to create 44 affordable-housing units, said Wayne Coogan principal of Coogan-Alaska. Coogan\u2019s company along with James P Hurley of Kenmore, Washington, is going in on the sale with PPP.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to tear it down; we\u2019re going to restore it,\u201d Coogan said. \u201cWhen the Barretts signed over control of the property that changed the game. Now something can be accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Coogan, the twice-burned buildings that have caused the city much grief since 2012 still have \u201csignificant value\u201d \u2014 both economically and historically speaking. The way he sees it the demolition \u201cseemed like a waste.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the city tore it down using tax-payer money, you\u2019d have more than a million dollar lien on a $200,000 piece of property,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty bleak outlook.\u201d <\/p>\n
City Engineering Director Rorie Watt has been inside the Gastineau Apartments several times since they burned and said that renovating the buildings is possible. The concrete superstructure of the building is still stable despite the fire damage, and only one of the apartment buildings ever actually caught fire. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s doable; it\u2019s always doable,\u201d he said. \u201cThe question is whether it\u2019s economical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before anything can be done, however, the city must stop the demolition of the apartments, which was slated to begin at some point in the next two weeks. This will require Assembly action, Mead said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going to change course, that direction needs to come from the Assembly,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Coogan said that his cohorts from Washington will be coming to Juneau to meet with city officials next week. The issue will go to the Assembly for consideration at the next available date, according to Mead. <\/p>\n
Watt agreed. \u201cI think where this is all headed is the Assembly meeting on (Nov. 9),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This sale, which is still tentative at this point, is sure to be a major Assembly discussion soon, but it almost never happened.<\/p>\n
The city was supposed to issue a notice to proceed Thursday to CBC Construction, the Sitka contractor who recently won the $1.36 million bid for the demolition of the apartments. Had this notice been given, CBC would\u2019ve been able to begin work, and the city would\u2019ve had to settle with the contractor if it decided to cancel the project. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re going to terminate a construction contract, earlier is better,\u201d Watt said. \u201cBefore the notice to proceed is best.\u201d<\/p>\n
As it is, the demolition contract has been put temporarily on hold. This happened before the notice to proceed was given, so if the Assembly decides to pull the project the city will not be forced to pay CBC. And Coogan attributes this to the effort of Assembly member Kate Troll.<\/p>\n
At one point, Coogan and Troll sat on the Affordable Housing Commission together. On Wednesday, the deal with the Barretts was close to be completed, but Coogan knew he needed more time to make it happen. He also knew that if the city issued the notice to proceed, he\u2019d have a tougher time having the demolition canceled, so he called Troll who talked to city officials to delay the notice. <\/p>\n
\u201cI bought him a day to try and put the deal together, and now we have to evaluate it,\u201d Troll said. She would not comment further since this is now an issue up for Assembly consideration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really boiled down to the hour \u2014 down to the minute,\u201d Coogan said. \u201cA bullet was dodged, and if all of this works out, she really did something for housing in this community.\u201d <\/p>\n
Though the city won\u2019t have to pay CBC if it does cancel the bid, it has still spent time and money putting the bid package together and planning the demolition. This cost was originally to be rolled in with the lien put on the property after the apartments were destroyed. Watt said he is unsure whether the city will try and recoup this money, which he told the Assembly earlier this year is about 10 percent of the total project cost, if it decides to cancel the bid. <\/p>\n
All in all, \u201cit\u2019s another chapter in the soap opera,\u201d Watt said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or at sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Seattle company entered into an agreement with the owner of the Gastineau Apartments on Thursday to buy the burned-out buildings. Public Private Partnership LLC and James Barrett, the owner of the blighted apartments, have entered into a purchase of sale agreement, but \u201cthere aren\u2019t new owners yet,\u201d according to City Attorney Amy Mead. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":5076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5075"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}