Community Government

City staff recommends pausing Masonic Lodge plans

City Parks Department staff recommended that the Gig Harbor City Council hit pause on deciding the future of the old Masonic Lodge, even as other plans for a Crescent Creek Park redesign move forward.

The recommendation, made at the council’s study session on Nov. 20, comes after the Historic Preservation Commission voted on Nov. 12 to recommend that the city hold off on making any plans to demolish the lodge. The commission suggested the city contract with a surveyor to perform an historic structures survey on the building.

The Masonic Lodge has been the central point of contention in the city’s plan to revamp Crescent Creek Park. The lodge is one of the few buildings the city owns that could be designated as historic. As of 2008, the city’s register of buildings that could be designated for historic preservation include only 22 structures, all privately owned.

While the page with the city’s historic structure inventory no longer exists on the city’s website, former Gig Harbor Historic Preservation Officer Lita Dawn Stanton shared with Gig Harbor Now a snapshot of it, as well as the 2008 inventory map in a slide she presented at the Historic Preservation Commission’s Nov. 12 meeting. The city confirmed that it has a copy in its physical archives.

The 2008 inventory of buildings that may be eligible for historic registries.

Cost

The park has long needed a redesign, particularly when it comes to accessibility, Parks Manager Jennifer Haro explained at the meeting.

The city received a Department of Justice complaint in 2019 for lack of ADA access in the park. Haro said Crescent Creek is steep in certain areas and doesn’t have good pedestrian access. The west area of the park between the parking lot and the creek will remain relatively untouched.

Of most concern to council members was the cost of preserving the lodge.

The city’s first survey regarding the redesign  projected a $4.5 million cost to preserve the lodge. Haro said the survey revealed that most community members don’t want the lodge saved if it costs that much, and that a covered shelter was the preferred redesign option. The $4.5 million price tag doesn’t include permitting, which could bring the total to between $6 million and $6.5 million.

The $4.5 million came from a projection created by a consultant who worked with a grassroots group working to save the lodge. The group turned over the entire cost projection to the city. It also sent out its own independent surveys to community members, and found that most community members would like to see the lodge preserved in some fashion. Of the more than 1,100 people who responded to that survey, 812 wanted to somehow keep the lodge.

Other options

Last week, Historic Preservation Committee member Stephanie Lile — the Harbor History Museum’s director, and a member of the group that favors saving the lodge — pointed out that the $4.5 million cost projection was the top-end number from the consultant. That projection also assumes saving the lodge exactly as it is. The projections the group turned over to the city also include less-expensive options.

Group member John McMillan proposed an historic redesign, rather than replacing the lodge with a covered shelter. Several people invested in the lodge’s survival in some form also noted that there is no community gathering space in that part of the city, and that a covered shelter isn’t an adequate option.

Councilmember Roger Henderson said he was concerned that the city could not afford either delay or an unclear design process.

“I’d rather see the money we would spend on this put towards a far nicer facility located maybe on a bus route, even more central, that would serve all of the people in a larger area than this,” Henderson said. He also added that, given all the unknowns, there could be an increase in traffic, which he could “pretty much guarantee” residents would not like.

“I’m afraid doing the study is just going to take us off into another unknown area where we’re going to have to wait and wait and wait, and then it’s going to eventually start impacting this project,” he continued. “So I’m not in favor of this.”

Historic structures survey

Community Development Director Eric Baker last weekend presented the Historic Preservation Commission members’ feedback and vote to the council at its study session.

At the study session, Baker noted historic preservation would require the city to keep the lodge looking as it does now, with little wiggle room for design elements and materials. Furthermore, if the city designates the lodge as an historic structure, it becomes limited in its ability to demolish the structure.

However, only the city can submit the lodge for historic designation. Conducting an historic structures survey does not mean the lodge automatically goes on the register.

“The survey is a data point, along with all the other data points that you have, that the council can utilize to determine whether you want to submit it to the Historic Preservation Commission for putting it on the register,” Baker explained. “That will be the decision point — that once you get to that point [of submitting it for historical designation], you are pretty much creating a long-term commitment on that building.”

History of the park

Lile noted that the Historic Structures Survey could tell the city whether the lodge would be appropriate for an adaptive reuse as a community center. She also pointed out that, because the building started out as a school, “Crescent Creek Park itself would very likely not even exist if it weren’t for this very building.”

“The U.S. government originally set aside tracts for schools, when planning the state,” she explained. “The WPA [Works Progress Administration] improved the site in the 1930s, because it was school property and the school district allowed the formation of a community park on school land … using the building as both a school and a community gathering place. The improved site was ultimately released to the city in the 1940s when the lodge was sold to the Masons.”

A majority of council members appeared to favor an historic structures review before making any decisions regarding the lodge.

Parks Department plans to present the council with a master plan for the park in late January that excludes any plans for the Masonic Lodge, until that survey is complete.