The Elks have spent the last four years trying to turn the lodge’s largest asset, the stategically placed campus between Union Avenue and Cedar Street, into cash so that the Elks, badly in need of revitalization, can move forward with plans to build a new lodge. That building would be the Elks’ fourth in its 119-year history in Tacoma.
Though plans for redevelop-ment of the Elks’ campus have generated news several times in the last few years, no shovel has yet turned the earth.
That could change soon, said the ever-hopeful overseer of the local lodge’s business, Gary Giambrone. He has worked the last three years as an outside problem-solver appointed by Elks headquarters, the Grand Lodge, to put the local lodge back on firm financial footing.
“We’re working with several parties that are interested in our property. We hope to have some news soon,” he said.
According to Ray Velkers, the First Western Commercial broker who’s been working with the lodge for three years to sell the land,
that news will concern development of the Cedar Street side of the property with office buildings. That’s been the first phase in the lodge’s plan to build its new building across Cedar at the Elks’ Allenmore Golf Course.
Velkers said he expects negotiations over the Cedar Street property to be completed in the next few months.
With the property’s proximity to Allenmore, the buildings are likely to house more medical offices.
HEALTH CARE HEALTHY
The health care business, unlike retail, has soldiered on despite the recession. The demand for new health care-related space seems undiminished by the poor economy.
Moving the office project forward would give the lodge the wherewithal to begin construction of a new lodge building on the golf course property, said Ray Forest, chairman of the lodge’s strategic planning committee and a former lodge exalted ruler.
That new lodge, still in the conceptual stage, will be perhaps a third to a half the size of the present building, said Forest. There will be racquetball courts, workout rooms and an abundance of flexible meeting and banquet rooms. Two kitchens will serve the building, one for a public restaurant that will be leased to an outside operator and one to serve the lodge meeting and banquet rooms. The new building will incorporate the golf course’s pro shop, now housed in a building that will be demolished to make way for the new lodge.
GOLF IMPROVEMENTS
The construction will also bring improvements to the golf course: new paved paths, new landscaping and a few redesigned “signature” holes.
Once the new lodge is open, the retail project can proceed on the property now occupied by the lodge building and its parking lot off Union. The 1965-vintage lodge will be demolished.
The lodge is hoping that within the two years required to move to the golf course, the economy will be off life support and banks will be more generous with their funds.
The lodge has entertained hope for the retail development several times in the past, but circumstances ranging from a wrong approach to the problem to a developer’s change of focus have stymied the efforts.
Velkers has no doubt that the Union Avenue side of the property will ultimately be developed because the tract is perhaps the most desirable large building site available within the city.
FREEWAY ACCESS
The west side of the property is adjacent to a large shopping center with Target, Office Depot, Petsmart and Top Foods as anchor tenants. It faces busy Union Avenue, a street with an exit and entrance to nearby Highway 16.
“I think it goes without saying that you won’t find such a large piece of property available in the city with such assets,” said Velkers.
The lodge has spent several years trying to find the right mix of businesses to buy or lease the property. Hope has risen several times only to fall again when a deal fell through or had a flaw the lodge couldn’t accept.
WAL-MART OFFER
Wal-Mart made an offer on the land. The world’s largest retailer has been looking for years to expand its network of stores to central Tacoma. Its nearest stores are in Lakewood, Spanaway and Puyallup. But Wal-Mart’s offer included a long contingency period, said Giambrone, which didn’t meet the lodge’s needs.
The lodge’s leadership feared that Wal-Mart could keep the land off the market for a lengthy period and then change plans, dumping the property back in the lodge’s lap to remarket.
The lodge at one time tried to lease the land, said Velkers and Giambrone.
“That just didn’t meet the lenders’ requirements,” Giambrone said. “They didn’t want to lend money for construction on land developers didn’t own.”
DEALS FALL THROUGH
The lodge hooked up with a Sacramento, Calif., developer, Panattoni Development Co., to create a retail center on the Union Avenue side of the property. Panattoni drafted plans for a development tentatively called 23 Union. The company dropped out, Velkers said, when it de-emphasized retail development as part of its corporate strategy.
The lodge then connected with Opus Northwest, a major developer with offices in Bellevue. Opus has successfully developed retail, warehouse and office projects nationwide and regionally in Bremerton, Federal Way and Fife.
Giambrone said the relationship between Opus and the lodge is changing from developer-property owner to adviser-property owner because it gives the project greater flexibility. Opus didn’t return calls for comment.
The lodge is moving cautiously despite its cash crisis, said Giambrone.
“We have $50 million worth of property here. We’re determined not to be taken advantage of just because the economy is still weak,” he said.
TENANTS STILL INTERESTED
Velkers claims that interest remains strong from prospective retail tenants, 13 of whom have signed letters of intent to lease buildings in the retail development.
“I’ve checked back with their headquarters because I was worried that some of them might back out because of the business climate. They all told me they were still committed,” he said.
The successful sale of the property is key to the rebirth of the Elks Lodge, said Giambrone and Forest.
The lodge is now property-rich and cash-poor as a result of a declining membership and overhead costs geared for a membership three times as large as the present one.
That the 21st century hasn’t been particularly kind to traditional fraternal organizations such as the 142-year-old Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks isn’t surprising. Their membership is aging, and the recession has accelerated the financial pressures that have forced lodges with big operating budgets like Tacoma’s 174 to cut back.
Giambrone and lodge trustees have already taken action to bring cash flow in line with expenses. They’ve shut down the dining room, which was a money loser even during prosperous times when there were waiting lines for a seat. And at the end of 2009, the lodge closed its pool, a money gobbling asset that served too few members to justify its upkeep.
“We monitored the pool for months,” said Giambrone. “We determined that perhaps 50 people were using it. That’s why we shut it down. We had to cut expenses.”
TOO BIG FOR MEMBERSHIP
The lodge’s expansive building is simply too big for its membership to support. That building, for instance, includes a 1,000-seat auditorium, a room that is seldom filled to capacity these days. The 1,400-locker dressing room has about 150 lockers in use.
That’s because the lodge membership has fallen from a high of 10,000 in the late ’90s to fewer than 3,000 today.
“We were for years the largest lodge in the country,” said past Elks exalted ruler Ron Forest. “Even with our present numbers, we’re still in the top five.”
Despite all the signs of decline, lodge leadership says the organization is not shutting down or fading away.
“If there’s any message out there that I’d like to tell the public, it’s that the Elks is not closing,” said Giambrone, who with committees of dedicated lodge members is mapping a resurrection for the venerable organization.
NEW MEMBERS SOUGHT
The new clubhouse and its connection to the golf course should attract more members, both men and women (women have been able to become Elks since the mid-’90s), said Forest.
In the meantime, the Elks is looking to staunch the loss of members.
To attract new members to the lodge in the interim, lodge planners are hiring more rock bands to perform at Elks functions and are working hard to promote the workout facilities whose costs to members are about a third of what they’d pay in a commercial athletic club.
And the lodge believes its charitable activities supporting veterans, children and the disabled should attract members whose concerns go beyond merely the social and athletic aspects of joining.
“We’ve always been about helping the community,” said Forest. “We think there are many others who have that same instinct who will join us.”
John Gillie: 253-597-8663
