Idaho-based company proposes to tear down 136-year-old Baker City building

Published 6:00 am Wednesday, June 7, 2023

The owner of a 136-year-old building in downtown Baker City is proposing to demolish the structure and eventually replace it with a convenience store.

Jacksons Food Stores of Meridian, Idaho, owns the building, known as the Odd Fellows Building. It was built in 1887 and is among the older buildings in the downtown district.

The two-story structure is at 1780 Main St., on the east side of Main Street just north of Auburn Avenue, across Main from the Baker Tower.

Despite its age, the Odd Fellows Building is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is not eligible for historic designation, according to the application Jacksons Food Stores submitted in late May to the city.

The reason the building is not eligible is that its original decorative exterior facade was removed in the 1950s and replaced with plaster and stucco, Ariel Deker, executive director of Baker City Downtown, said on Monday morning, June 5.

The building also is poor shape inside, Deker said, with holes in the floors and structural and contamination problems that would need to be fixed, at extensive cost, for the building to be usable.

Jacksons application includes photographs of damaged brick and mortar and loose bricks.

Although Reker hasn’t been inside the building, she said she has talked with a couple people who have toured it. Reker said she has also spoken with Jessica Aguilar, real estate manager for Jacksons, which bought the building in July 2021, according to records from the Baker County Assessor’s Office.

Aguilar filed the application that Baker City’s Historic District Design Review Committee was slated to consider during a public meeting Tuesday morning at City Hall.

Aguilar had not returned phone messages by press time Monday.

Reker, who is a member of the design review committee, said the committee, whose members are appointed by the city council, could potentially reject Jacksons’ application to demolish the Odd Fellows Building.

But if the building were to remain in its current state, it would not contribute to the integrity of the historic district, Reker said.

“We have 110 historic structures, and we don’t want to lose any of them,” Reker said. “But there has to be something left to preserve. To say the least, (the building) has a lot pf problems. The status of the building as it currently sits worries me from a safety standpoint. I feel torn.”

Carol Phillips, who owns an historic building downtown and is also a member of the design review committee, said on Monday that she believes there is “nothing to restore” in the building due to past renovations and its dilapidation.

“I hate to see the old buildings get torn down, but there’s not much left for preservation,” she said.

According to the application from Jacksons, a structural engineer who inspected the building found that the “existing exterior brick is severely degraded. The degraded parapets are most severe and are a potential life safety issue because of the possibility of falling bricks pose a threat to pedestrians below.”

The application also states that “a renovation and remodel will be less safe thana new building without significant retrofit costs making that option less practical, economically. Preservation of the building is not justified due to the non-contributing historical significance and current appearance being uncharacteristic of the Baker City Downtown Historical District.”

The building’s most recent tenant, prior to Jacksons’ purchase, was the Little Bagel Shop.

In 2017, students in the environmental science course at Baker Technical Institute started a project to deal with some of the environmental contamination in the building, including lead and asbestos.

The Baker School District coordinated the project with the International Order of Odd Fellows, which owned the 8,200-square-foot building.

Reker said students did some, but not all, of the clean up work. They weren’t able to remove contaminated soil in the basement, a legacy of the former Record-Courier newspaper’s printing press.

Reker said removing that soil would compromise the stability of the building’s foundation, and would be quite expensive. She said Jacksons would have to deal with the soil, however, before the company could rent or otherwise use the building.

Jacksons is proposing instead to demolish the building and temporarily use the site as a gravel parking lot. The company owns the convenience store that is just south of the Odd Fellows Building.

The company’s ultimate plan is to build a new convenience store, of about 5,800 square feet, where the Odd Fellows Building now stands, according the application.

As part of the demolition phase, the company would also reinforce the wall of the building to the north, with which it shares a wall. That building houses the Hearts and Petals Flower Shop.