Cheney’s Historic Preservation Commission has approved a special valuation application for the School House Lofts student housing complex — formerly known as the Fisher Building — located at 520 Fourth St. The building, which began service as the city’s high school in 1929 and was placed on the local historic register in 2016, is now eligible for special tax assessments from the county due to historic preservation work completed during its renovation.
The commission agreed to a list of qualified rehabilitation expenses of $6,692,925 submitted by the building’s owner, Eastmark Capital Group’s Sean Barnes. According to state historic preservation incentives, rehabilitation costs will be subtracted from the assessed value of the property, with taxes based upon that lower value for up to 10 years.
As part of the agreement reached with the city, School House Lofts, LLC agrees to fulfill certain state requirements, including maintaining the property in compliance with the Washington State Advisory Council’s Standards for Rehabilitation, while the commission agrees to monitor the property to ensure compliance.
School House Lofts originally submitted rehabilitation costs of $6.86 million. At a Nov. 2 special meeting, however, the commission found that some of those costs were not allowed under state standards such as land cost and purchase price, earthwork and site demolition and other exterior work.
At that meeting, the commission submitted a list of questions to School House Lofts on nine specific items — totaling almost $318,000 — for more clarification before including those items in the qualified rehabilitation costs. One of those items, $263,980, was the cost for building a new room for Verizon telecommunications equipment previously located on the building when it was owned by the Cheney School District.
Also included were marketing costs, something Barnes wrote in a letter to the commission was necessary as part of management expenses as defined under the definition of qualified rehabilitation expenses.
“Due to the fact we were not generating income, the bank wanted us to put the PM (property management) expense under the Marketing header,” Barnes wrote.
Barnes also said a line item for “window treatments” did indeed refer to custom manufactured and installed curtain rods and drapes as the commission suspected. However, commission administrative assistant Sue Beeman explained that because of cost overruns associated with the building’s foundational footings, a number of items had to be scaled back such as higher-end kitchen appliances, signage and the drapes.
“I think I feel sorry for the tenants if they have to provide 12-foot curtains,” Commissioner Bettye Hull said during discussion of the list.
Hull added she felt everything “looked in order,” and Beeman told the commission that staff felt Barnes had provided enough answers to make a recommendation to approve the list, which was done unanimously, 6-0. Commissioner Tom Balderree was not present.
After the vote, Commissioner Lee Pierce told the other members that a student working with him at the Eastern Washington branch of the state archives lives in School House Lofts and is enjoying the experience. The student said a community has evolved inside the former school district facility with a camaraderie and atmosphere that even the on-campus residence halls lack.
“For whatever reason, he’s just having a ball,” Pierce said.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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