Snohomish County News
Volunteers busy remodeling museum
Doug Ramsay photo
Western Heritage Center Interactive Museum’s Carl Blanchard adjusts a beam before nailing it down. Volunteers, like Blanchard, are expanding the Monroe museum. Opened on the far southeast corner of the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in 2007, the 2,200-square-foot museum features hands on exhibits that focus on the agricultural, mining, logging and transportation industries and their history in the Snohomish River valleys. The facility, which hums with the noise from operations of century old farm and logging machines, was designed with working machines in mind. “Static displays just don’t cut it,” said museum director Jerry Senner as he turned on the switch of a 1915 electric washing machine. The expansion of the museum will feature a more attractive entrance and a gift shop and will be completed by late March. It will also give the museum a place to show off its collection of early 1900 home appliances, such as a washing machine and a non-electric ice box from the 1920s. The museum remains open during construction Wednesday through Sunday with information available at www.westernheritagecenter.org.
Port, preservationists begin new process for Collins Building
EVERETT - After years of debate, the Collins Building process is getting a do-over.
The Port of Everett Commission is starting at the beginning, launching a new engineering study that will be presented to the Port of Everett Commission and local residents June 5.
“We need to commit to something and move forward,” Commissioner Michael Hoffman said. But first, the port needs to know what the historic Collins Building’s options are, commissioners said.
The engineering study will update four studies conducted over the last 12 years on the building’s structure. The final report will include a cost estimate for adapting the building, which is the only remaining vestige of Everett’s lumber-mill days, into something residents could use, such as a museum, farmers’ market or office space.
When the report is presented June 5, the commission will open the conversation on the building’s fate. In the past, studies have shown saving the building is too costly to be viable, but the commission — which has two new members after November’s election — says they’ll save that conversation until after the study is done.
Residents thanked the commission for giving the Collins Building process another chance.
“The landscape is constantly changing,” said Valerie Steel, who has been on the forefront of the movement to save the building.
“We are in a different place today than we were in 2005,” Steel said, citing the last time the port conducted a study on costs for saving the building.
Current conversations surrounding the Collins Building mark a major shift in the relationship between preservation activists and the port. As the two groups have debated the building’s fate for the last five years, disagreements bred resentment from residents who felt the port was stonewalling their efforts to save the 84-year-old building.
This resentment reached a fever pitch just before last year’s November elections when residents found a 2004 memo in which a public relations firm outlined a plan to demolish the building with minimal outcry from the public.
The port has denied knowing about the memo, which was sent from a public relations firm to the now-bankrupt developers, Maritime Trust, but the memo was found in port files.
Since then, two newcomers were elected to the port’s three-member commission, and residents have dropped two lawsuits filed to prevent the port from demolishing the Collins Building.
“My hope through this process is that we can not only demonstrate that we have an open minded commission but also that the community is open to the port as well,” Hoffman said. “We can open up those barriers.”
Part of opening those barriers will include a panel discussion of community impacts of redeveloping the Collins Building.
Commissioner Mark Wolken asked to convene members of the nonprofit community to gauge how difficult fundraising would be.
“Every proposal has some future need for substantial fundraising,” Wolken said. “I want to talk about the effort necessary to make something happen and the willingness to do it.”
Wolken named groups like the YMCA and Everett Symphony as examples of groups that should be included.
But before residents can start fundraising, the port will need to decide what the Collins Building will be. Architect Richard Sullivan recently proposed putting a farmers’ market on the building’s first floor, a maritime museum on the second and artist and hobby space on the third.
Sullivan said his estimates for developing the building were way under the port’s $15 million estimate.
Port officials are waiting until the June 5 meeting to decide how to redevelop the Collins Building — or whether the building is even suited for redevelopment.
By LINDSAY TOLER
Published Feb. 24, 2010
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