Innovative art space brings together Victorian architecture and 21st Century design.

DEVELOPMENT: Fairhaven will benefit from growth planned and carried out in the right way.

C.W. Waldron would be proud that the vision he started in 1890 could become a reality more than 100 years later under plans by local developer David Ebenal, who plans to finally finish the upper stories of Waldron’s Fairhaven building.

The four-story building next to Bob’s Burgers and Brew was intended to have Waldron’s Bank of Fairhaven in the bottom story, but when the building boom went bust, the building was never finished. Ebenal envisions a bank on the bottom floor and finishing the never-completed top three stories for condominiums and a three-story building on land that is now a gravel lot.

Taking on an old building like that has to be a labor of love. Ebenal said it would be cheaper to tear the building down than retrofit it, but he wants to preserve the building. The developer can plan as well as possible, but still be hit with costly surprise during the remodeling phase. When someone is willing to do the job right, the way Daylight Properties owner Bob Hall has with several downtown Bellingham buildings including the former Bellingham Beauty School building now being renovated, the result is a gift to the community.

When a community can preserve its heritage and recapture its roots, it builds a sense of authenticity that is becoming rarer and rarer in growing communities.

Who could complain about rehabilitating a wonderful old building to add needed and desired housing? The growth here goes up, rather than out. It doesn’t block anyone’s view or face debates over design. It adds density in an established neighborhood without building new roads and requiring new services. It puts housing close to where residents can work and also right next to an existing trail system and bus line. Essentials like the Fairhaven Red Apple market, a post office, a drug store, restaurants and retail establishments are within walking distance.

Ebenal has established himself as the biggest mover and shaker of the moment in Fairhaven development. He has taken the ugly old skeleton of girders on Harris Avenue that stood abandoned for more than 25 years and turned it into Fairhaven Square, which fits so nicely next to Sycamore Square that is already seems like it has always been there. Fairhaven Square’s 22 condos were quickly snapped up. The building’s downstairs is home to Coppa, a bistro with considerable buzz, as well as offices and retail space.

While change can be scary and some residents are concerned about compromising Fairhaven’s charm by adding too many people to the neighborhood, these are examples of projects that meet the goals of adding housing while preventing sprawl and preserving character. Things done right deserve notice.

Appeal opens on tall-building plan

AUBREY COHEN – THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

Lawyers, experts and Bellingham residents Wednesday debated how a 10-story building fits into Fairhaven and just what city design rules require.

Ted Mischaikov and Rick Westerop’s Fairhaven Harbor project would stagger from three to 10 stories, between Eighth and Ninth streets and Harris and McKenzie avenues. Developer David Ebenal and residents David Carlsen and Sheryl Davis appealed the city’s design approval for the project, objecting to the size of the tall building and some other details.

“This appeal is about preventing a 10-story massive block from overshadowing Fairhaven,” Ebenal’s lawyer, Leslie Clark. Told city Hearing Examiner Dawn Sturwold Wednesday – the first of what will probably be three nights of hearing on the appeal.

City rules limit building height to 35 feet in the core of Fairhaven but impose no limit in the area of the 10-story building. Wednesday’s testimony centered on a design requirement for buildings to be in “harmony of scale” with Fairhaven.

Ebenal’s witnesses included architects, citizens and Michael Sullivan, a Tacoma architectural historian who has done much work in Bellingham and has written about Fairhaven.

“I think it’s completely out of scale, in fact exaggeratedly out of scale with Fairhaven,” Sullivan said. He said Fairhaven’s turn-of-the-century brick buildings did not top five stories.

Fairhaven resident John Poggi said the building “would stick out like a giant sore thumb.”

Only Ebenal got the chance to call witnesses Wednesday. But Mischaikov and Westerop’s lawyer tried to have Sturwold throw out the whole issue of height and bulk before the hearing got going.

Height and bulk are not part of the design criteria for the area that includes that 10-story building, lawyer Doug Robertson said, drawing laughter from many of the more than 75 people who turned out for hearing. Sturwold elected to take testimony on the issue and consider the legal arguments later.

In his opening argument, Robertson said the purpose of design review was not to create an ” artificial Disney-like building.”

“It’s not to make everything look the same, but to make development consistent so there’s economic growth,” he said.

The City Council addressed the height issue when it set no limit in this area, Robertson said. “None of us here can say whether that’s a good or bad decision, but it was decided.”

A major aspect of Clark’s written brief that she did not touch on Wednesday – except perhaps in the ways her witnesses understood “harmony of scale” – was that the city’s design standards for the area were improperly vague. In her brief, Clark and asked Sturwold to make the city write proper standards that would apply to the project or limit it to five stories.

Robertson suggested Ebenal wanted the design rules thrown out as improperly vague so they would not apply to his next project.

FAIRHAVEN HARBOR

Last we knew: Developer David Ebenal and residents David Carisen and Sheryl Davis appealed the design of Ted Mischaikov and Rick Westerop’s Fairhaven Harbor project.

The latest: Bellingham Hearing Examiner Dawn Sturwold started to consider the appeals Wednesday.

What’s next: The hearing continues at 6 p.m. June 21 and, if necessary, June 22, in the Council Chambers of City Hall 210 Lottie St. The location would change if there were a scheduling conflict.

Reach Aubrey Cohen at Aubrey.cohen@bellinghamherald.com or 715-2289.

JOHN STARK - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

BELLINGHAM – A 50-foot tall building planned near the Hotel Bellwether would impair views and hurt the value of nearby real estate, neighbors told the Bellingham Planning Commission Thursday.

“I think you’re doing a terrible thing to a city with a bay,” said Holly Street resident Mowry Treadwell.

The commission was holding a public hearing on developer David Ebenal’s Bellwether Gate project, consisting of four new building on 3.1 acres of long-vacant Port of Bellingham property located roughly between the two Anthony’s restaurants on the waterfront near Squalicum Harbor. The biggest of the four would be four stories, a bit over 50 feet tall. The hearing was required because Ebenal and the port need an amendment to a 1998 planned development contract for the site, in which the port and city agreed that building there would not top 3 feet.

Ebenal has tentatively agree to pay the port $2.9 million for an 80-year lease on the property. The biggest of the four new buildings would contain ground floor retail space, topped by two floors of office space for the CH2M Hill engineering firm, and an upper floor with 10 condo units.

Architect Fred Wagner, representing Ebenal, and Port Planning Director Sylvia Goodwin told commissioner that Ebenal needs the bigger building to help him recoup the costs of constructing a 176-space underground parking lot, while installing the sophisticated foundation systems needed for construction on a site constructed from fill.

Steve Sundin, a city planner, presented computer-generated images meant to show what views would look like from several key points if Ebenal’s building were permitted. Those images indicated the impacts on views would be small in most cases, and Sundin said the city planning staff recommended that the higher building be approved.

The neighbors weren’t buying it. They said Ebenal’s profit would come at their expense.

One critic, Kelly Beerman, said he was denied a 3.5-foot variance on a city height restriction for a building he is constructing 1203 W. Holly St., He said Ebenal’s project would detract from the views in the condos he is building, reducing their value.

Ken Marzocco, president and general manager of CH2M Hill Engineering Services, said Ebenal’s project will help his company keep its $20 million payroll in the city, and he questioned the project’s feasibility without the extra floor that the higher limit would allow.

“Nobody’s sunset is going to be affected,” Marzocco said.

Others said the existing Bellwether buildings already damaged their views, and the port helped to smooth over neighborhood animosity by promising that buildings on the rest of the site would not top 35 feet.

“I felt like I was lied to the last time,” said Eldridge Avenue resident Andra Millage.

Millage said her own view won’t be affected much by Ebenal’s project, but she expressed fear that a higher building limit on the site would set a precedent for the later redevelopment of the reset of the port’s waterfront land.

The planning commission was to make a recommendation on the matter to Planning Director Tim Stewart, who can amend the development contract to allow the higher building. The commission meeting had not concluded when this issue went to press.

BELLWETHER GATE

• What: Four building, with retail, office and condominiums.
• Where: Near Hotel Bellwether, Anthony’s restaurants, and U.S. Coast Guard station.
• When: Three to five years to build, with construction on first building as soon as summer 2008.
• Developer: David Ebenal
• Property owner: Port of Bellingham.

Developer views neighbor worries as “little bump”

JOHN STARK – THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

BELLINGHAM – Although the project still faces a legal challenge, Port of Bellingham commissioners voted Tuesday to give final approval to a $2.9 million lease agreement with developer David Ebenal.

The deal, approved in outline in February 2007, gives Ebenal a 50-year lease on the site with an option for another 30 years.

Ebenal plans to build four buildings on the 3.1-acre parcel, on both sides of Bellwether Way between the two Anthony’s restaurants. The largest of the four buildings is expected to provide new office space for engineering firm CH2M Hill, allowing the firm to expand its local work force from 280 to as many as 500.

Before that can happen, the port and the developer will have to prevail in a legal challenge mounted by a group of neighbors who contend that the project will hurt their views and reduce their property values.

On behalf of those neighbors, Bellingham attorney Douglas Robertson is asking the city hearing examiner and the Shoreline Hearings Board to overturn City Planning Director Time Stewart’s December 2007 decision increasing allowable building height on the site to accommodate the plan worked out between Ebenal and the port.

The hearing examiner has scheduled a hearing in May. The shoreline board will hold hearings in June.

The height on the site had been restricted to 35 feet under the terms of a 1998 planned development contract between the port and city. But Ebenal proposes 50 feet – five stories – on the largest building. The extra story would contain 10 condo units Ebenal says he needs to sell to over the cost of creating 176 underground parking spaces as an alternative to taking up more waterfront real estate with surface parking.

Ken Marzocco, president and general manager of CH2M Hill engineering services, said the attractive waterfront location was a big plus for his firm.

“There’s a severe shortage of technical people in this country,” Marzocco said. “We’re doing everything we can to attract those people. … Location is a big part of it.”

Ebenal expressed confidence that the project will proceed, with construction to begin as early as late summer.

“As everyone knows, the financial market is tough right now, but the deal we’ve put together is a financeable deal,” he said.

He also seemed unconcerned about the neighbors’ appeal.

“There’s been a little bump in the road with the height issue,” he told commissioners. “We’ll overcome it.”

If the little bump turns into a roadblock, the deal as Approved Tuesday would be off.

Ebenal can proceed with obtaining city building permits, but he cannot begin construction until the legal issues are resolved.

Under the tentative construction schedule announced Tuesday, Ebenal would start the largest building by Sept. 1 and complete it by Dec. 1, 2010. The three other smaller buildings would be under way by Nov. 1 2010, and complete by Oct. 31, 2012.

Commissioner Scott Walker told Ebenal that he hopes the new buildings will be more attractive than the gray stone Bellwether buildings next door. Walker termed the design of those buildings “a mistake.”

Reach John Stark at 715-2274 or john.stark@bellinghamheral.com.