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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2017
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Robert Seitz makes improvements to a storefront on the Mary & Nellie Flavel Building that will soon feature his new restaurant and seafood market.
Landmark: Building will feature restaurant, seafood market
Continued from Page 1A
“They screw them down into the earth
until they meet a certain resistance, and that
resistance is what they determine will hold
the building in place,” John Goodenberger, a
local historian, said.
While the building was being structurally
stabilized, Nick Clark Masonry from Clats-
kanie went to work over the summer remov-
ing and restoring the building’s historic brick
veneer and terra-cotta facade.
Broken sections of sidewalk in front of the
building were replaced. The Liottas bought a
new boiler to power the building’s existing
radiators, while keeping the old one as a hulk-
ing decorative piece in the basement.
While employing contractors for much
of the major work, the Liottas, who previ-
ously bought and restored a 1900 Union-
town triplex, have also been doing much of
the improvements inside the building’s suites
themselves, stockpiling reclaimed wood in the
basement to be used throughout the building.
“We’re trying to save anything historical that
we can,” Liotta said. “We’re not trying to
remodel it into any kind of modern thing.”
Filling up fast
The couple recently put up a sign in the
window looking for tenants. After two weeks,
they took the sign down after a deluge of
interested callers.
“People were just aware,” Michelle Liotta
said. “They knew this was being remodeled.”
One of the first to call was Elisabeth
Pietila, who recently opened Wild Roots
Movement and Massage at 922 Commer-
cial St., with movement classes in the front
and massage in a back room. Pietila, an Asto-
ria native, was attracted to the gritty nature
of the building, all the way down to the log
trucks rumbling past on Commercial Street,
she said.
Terra Glaspey has run Terra Stones, a store
specializing in rocks, gemstones, jewelry and
home decor, for the past 14 years downtown.
In 2004, she tried to rent a spot from the
building’s previous owner, Mary Louise Fla-
vel, but said she never heard back. Glaspey
was looking to downsize her store when she
was put in touch with the Liottas.
“I was really excited for this whole end of
town, because it’s the first thing people see
when they come into downtown,” Glaspey
said of the Liottas’ work, adding she hopes to
open in the corner suite in February.
Robert and Tiffani Seitz had recently
returned to Astoria from Morro Bay, Califor-
nia, where they fished commercially and ran a
seafood shop. After seeing the sign and meet-
ing with the Liottas, the couple went to work
fixing the storefront for South Bay Wild, a
new seafood restaurant and shop they plan to
open in the spring on Ninth Street.
“We like the old style,” Robert Seitz said,
adding the couple hope to keep the historical
nature of the space while blending some nau-
tical flair. “We’re making a little chandelier
out of a black cod pot, and then we’ll have
different nautical memorabilia.”
The Liottas are fixing up the former Sears
storefront at 936 Commercial St. in prepara-
tion for a holiday bazaar Dec. 16. Michelle
Liotta said the bazaar will become a periodic
pop-up event. She hopes to eventually open
the space permanently as Reclamation Mar-
ketplace, a permanent space for local collec-
tors, artisans and craftspeople in need of a
place to sell but not an entire storefront.
Next steps
The Liottas got lucky with a roof that
was mostly in good condition, but still face
a lot of work to restore the M&N Building.
John Goodenberger, a local expert in historic buildings, points out earth anchors installed in the basement.
Fluorescent bulbs removed from the ceil-
ing of one of the units in the newly re-
modeled Mary & Nellie Flavel Building lay
piled in one of the storefronts.
Marcus Liotta looks over work done to improve the foundation.
‘This is about investment in
communities, especially downtowns.’
Joy Sears
a restoration specialist with the state
This week, they are reconnecting the build-
ing to the city sewer, after replacing broken
terra-cotta pipes. They will soon replace the
steel windows on the back side of the build-
ing with aluminum.
“Painting, we’ll be taking that on as the
weather improves,” Marcus Liotta said.
“Even though the building structurally is
great, and we’ve solved a lot of the big issues,
until you paint it … it’s kind of the last stage.”
There are more than 470 active histori-
cal restorations like the Liottas’ throughout
the state that are part of the Special Assess-
ment of Historic Property Program. The pro-
gram allows the Liottas to pay property taxes
on the dilapidated building they bought with-
out being penalized for the massive amount
of money they are pouring in.
“This is about investment in communities,
especially downtowns,” said Joy Sears, a res-
toration specialist with the state. “We’re basi-
cally looking for properties that need signifi-
cant investments. This can give them a break
on those property taxes while they make the
investments.”
The Liottas have vastly surpassed the pro-
gram’s requirement to reinvest at least 10 per-
cent of the real market value of the property
into the building in the first five years. They
can also apply for a future round of tax abate-
ments to improve the building’s Americans
with Disabilities Act accessibility, seismic
stability and energy efficiency.
The M&N Building’s inclusion on the list
of Most Endangered Places provided grant
funding for the Liottas to bring in Gooden-
berger, a historic buildings expert, as a con-
sultant. Goodenberger helped the Liottas
apply for the special assessment program,
along with the federal historic tax credit pro-
gram, which is on the chopping block in the
new Republican tax overhaul.
Developers and preservationists around
the country have sounded alarm bells about
the cuts, arguing the lack of a tax credit will
prevent many historic structures from being
restored. Innovative Housing Inc. would
probably use the tax credit to help turn the
former Waldorf Hotel near City Hall into
workforce housing, Goodenberger said.
“There’s this give and take,” he said of
fixing up run-down historic buildings. “You
have your choice: Are you going to have an
empty building, or are you going to allow
a tax break so that these folks can fix it and
make an investment in Astoria, and we can
have more jobs in Astoria and more busi-
nesses in Astoria?”