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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2016
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
Preservation enthusiasts, enrolled in Oregon Main Street’s workshop on revitalizing buildings, inventory the exterior flaws of the M&N Building in downtown Astoria.
M&N Building: Blueprints were found in attic of Flavel mansion
Continued from Page 1C
“Our built environment
today is really a relection of
1920s architecture, and that’s
what’s made us unique, is
that we are a bit of a snapshot
in time architecturally,” City
Manager Brett Estes said at
a recent Oregon Main Street
Awards ceremony.
The M&N housed an
assortment of businesses
before Sears, the last tenant,
abandoned it in 1996. Many
locals consider the building
an aging blemish on the strip,
a continual annoyance for
those who value a pristine city
center.
Field work
But, during the workshop,
the M&N was an object of
serious study — less of an eye-
sore and more an opportunity
to reclaim the building’s past
and rediscover its promise.
It doesn’t take trained eyes
to see the structure is in pretty
rough shape. For ield work,
the students took stock of the
building’s exterior laws.
Windows are broken. Some
of the original brick frontage
is slowly separating from the
structure. A number of deep
cracks have cut into the facades.
The foundation has settled, pro-
ducing noticeable dips that
extend to the sidewalk.
John Goodenberger, a
local historian and preserva-
tion expert who co-hosted the
workshop, explained a theory
of the M&N’s sagging: The
concrete columns supporting
the building likely sit atop old
wood pilings that may actually
be rotting.
Because of structural con-
cerns — and because the inte-
rior is full of lead, asbestos
and leftover debris — students
peered through the windows
and poked their heads into a
doorway but were not allowed
inside.
While noting the criti-
cal issues, however, the stu-
?
‘It’s like archeology. You
want to look at these old
buildings and see what has
changed, what’s original.’
Lucien Swerdloff
a Clatsop Community College instructor and workshop host
dents saw great potential and
were invited to imagine what
they would do with the relic.
(Another brew pub or pot
shop?)
Joan Wessel, director of the
Downtown Corvallis Associ-
ation who participated in the
workshop, said it will take the
Liottas “some time and some
money” to refurbish the site.
The plumbing and electri-
cal systems must be replaced,
the transom windows restored,
the drop ceiling removed and
the foundation repaired. A seri-
ous seismic retroitting may be
in order, along with other code
upgrades.
But, Wessel added, there
is almost nothing wrong with
the building “that they can’t
ix up.”
Marcus and Michelle
Liotta, who purchased the
building for $135,000 last
summer, said they hope to
establish their own businesses
in two or three of the ive
storefronts and lease the oth-
ers. Rickenbach Construction
is scheduled to begin structural
and facade work on the M&N
early next year.
Archaeology
It isn’t enough to know
the M&N’s shape; the Liottas
need to know the story — the
circumstances of its birth and
how the building arrived at its
condition.
Fortunately, the origi-
nal blueprints were recently
recovered from the attic of the
Flavel mansion on 15th Street
and Franklin Avenue, another
former Flavel property under
restoration.
“If you can ind those,
you’re lucky,” said Lucien
Swerdloff, a Clatsop Com-
munity College instructor and
workshop host. “A lot of build-
ings, you don’t have that.”
The faded blueprints are
almost illegible, but they give
the owners something to work
with, helping them deter-
mine where the elevation has
dropped, how the rooms have
been reconigured, and which
improvements are realistic and
feasible.
“It gives you a real leg-up
in talking about the resto-
ration, because you have
drawings, you have measure-
ments, plans,” Goodenberger
said. “And buildings are not
always constructed the way
they were drawn, but it gives
you something to start with.”
Swerdloff and co-host
Jay Raskin, a Portland archi-
tect who helped found the
community college’s his-
toric preservation program,
encourage restorers to dig
through microiche, news-
papers, ire insurance maps
and vintage photographs to
know the many phases of the
property.
“It’s like archeology,”
Swerdloff said. “You want to
look at these old buildings and
see what has changed, what’s
original.”
Debbi Reeves, a work-
shop participant and execu-
tive assistant to the Tillamook
Urban Renewal Agency, said
the M&N will look beauti-
ful when the Liottas are done
with it.
“It’s got good bones,” she
said.
Land shark
W
e fear that sharks may be drawn to our coast because of all those
delightful sea lions, but Warrenton? Must be those big-box stores …
From emergency dispatch: “Report of someone in a shark
costume.”
9-1-WHAT?
THE BEST OF THE WORST CALLS TO ASTORIA 911 DISPATCH
Follow reporter Kyle Spurr on his 9-1-What? Twitter watch, where a few of
the sometimes head-scratching calls to area dispatch take center stage. The full
feed is at www.twitter.com/9_1_WHAT.
Now available in the
The Daily Astorian and
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