Boulevard Nursery Garden and Gift Shop at 2021 Boulevard Road S.E. closed last August.
Since then the property largely has remained vacant. Neighbors say it has become a dumping ground for garbage and has attracted vermin, such as rats.
That could all change at 10 a.m. Friday when the property is auctioned at the Thurston County Courthouse, Tacoma attorney Darren Krattli said Tuesday. A notice of trustee’s sale filed in February shows that business owner Jeff Nevin of Nevinland LLC owed about $127,000 on the property, according to Thurston County Auditor data.
Krattli, a trustee for the lender, said his office has received many inquiries about the property and he expects it to sell this week.
“I’m fairly confident that will occur,” he said.
Nevin could not be reached but Thurston County Assessor information shows that Nevinland LLC paid $290,000 for the property in August 2001. Nevin later became the sole property owner and assessor information shows a mailing address for him in the Eastern Washington town of Davenport.
Efforts to reach Nevin have been a challenge, Thurston County environmental site specialist Bill Dean said Tuesday. Although Boulevard Nursery is not in the county’s jurisdiction, Dean visited the site and tried to contact Nevin after neighbors expressed concern about the property. Letters sent to Nevin’s Davenport address and one in Olympia came back “return to sender,” Dean said.
Chris Grabowski, an Olympia code enforcement officer for the city’s east side, said he, too, has been unable to reach Nevin. If Nevin could be reached, he likely would be fined for “at least three clear and separate code violations,” including the presence of trash and debris on the site and the danger posed by “partially disassembled structures,” Grabowski said.
Code violation fines start at $103 for a first offense but can rise to $513 for a “third and subsequent offenses,” he said. Monday morning the city hopes to be dealing with a new owner who has a “vested interest in cleaning it up ASAP,” Grabowski said.
Westminster Presbyterian Church, which neighbors the site, is not interested in bidding on the former property, church member Frank Sanborn said Tuesday. The church is hosting the homeless tent city Camp Quixote. The Camp Quixote spot eventually will be used as overflow parking once the church’s expansion plans are complete, he said.
The church applied for a conditional use permit April 1 to expand the church, including a new fellowship hall, by about 7,500 square feet, Sanborn said.
Rolf Boone is a business reporter for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5403 or rboone@theolympian.com.
