A sad state of affairs
Aberdeen, Washington is my new hometown.
I have been living here for more than a year now, and recently I’ve been having some conversations about this town and how sad-looking it is. In addition to that, there is no good place to go shopping, to eat out (well, there are two, but how long can that last you?) and no place cool to hang out. The bars are all sort of sleazy, and there’s just not a lot to do if you’re in your 20s and looking to have fun with your friends.
We’ve met some really cool people in the year I’ve been here. (Actually, most of them are high school friends of my fiance). But there are some people with some amazing vision for this town.
One of the sad things they keep doing is knocking down old buildings. I know some of them need to be knocked down — a building needs to be safe, and so many of them have been sitting in disrepair for so long, that it would be really tough to rescue them now. But I think the ones that can be saved should be saved.
Aberdeen could be right on the verge of a renaissance. It could redefine itself as a cute touristy town, instead of the logging town it was during its more prosperous days. There could be cool places to live (historic condo conversions, anyone?) and cool places to eat and hang out. That would be an Aberdeen I would want to live in.
As we speak, negotiations continue between Chester Trabucco and a Bellevue investor (Aberdeen native) to move ahead on the Morck Hotel project. Meanwhile, the investor has gone ahead and purchased the D&R Theater and is starting to fix that up. He’s also made public a desire to purchase two of the more renowned buildings in town (the Elks Building on Broadway and the Becker building) and convert them both to condos.
The cool thing about some of these old buildings is that there are a few for sale, and you can’t get this kind of square footage for this price anywhere else in the country, I’m pretty sure. It’s small town prices, and it’s a bit of a testament to how desperate the town is getting for someone to come in and give it a bit of a makeover.
Here’s to a group of young people, making something happen in a town that desperately needs it.