Fate of historic, ‘dilapidated’ Knutson Building on the line

CEDAR RAPIDS - Five months have passed since the City Council kicked a high-cost decision down the road on whether it should save or demolish the vacant, 128-year-old Knutson Building across the Cedar River from downtown.

Tuesday, the council confronts the matter again - this time with a new $18,000 engineering study, the executive summary of which begins: 'The ‘Knutson Building' is currently in a dilapidated state, with significant moisture damage.”

Jennifer Pratt, director of the Department of Community Development, said Friday her department is suggesting the council pick from two options: stabilize and mothball it, or demolish it.

In either option, Pratt said, one thought is that the property is a good place for a building that can support the $8 million riverfront amphitheater next door with public restrooms and other services.

Stabilizing and mothballing would be done with the idea that the building would be saved and renovated, most likely by the city.

Demolition also may be followed by the construction of a new building, Pratt said.

According to the new engineering study, demolition would cost an estimated $400,000 while the construction of a new building could cost, perhaps, $1.75 million.

However, Pratt said the city, for example, conceivably could partner with a developer who might provide most of cost of a new building, which could include room for public space to support the city amphitheater.

In the renovation option, the cost estimates range from $2.175 million to $2.5 million to $4.8 million.

These amounts are over and above the $167,500 immediate cost of stabilizing and mothballing the building. The city also would pay an estimated $16,200 in annual upkeep charges until it is renovated. In addition, another $100,000 would be part of a renovation because the city's flood-control system would need to be built around it is it now sits.

At the same time, Pratt said the cost of the renovation option would not include any city costs for the new construction option. In addition, she said federal and state historic tax credits could help with the cost of renovation. Then there is the intangible benefit of saving a building that is eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

Pratt said her department has set aside a third option: a proposal from local developer KHB Redevelopment Group LLC, which calls for $1.125 million of city money.

For that cost, the city might as well renovate the building itself and maintain ownership, Pratt said.

She said the decision in front of the City Council on Tuesday will require the council to balance 'financial feasibility” with historic preservation. Reaching a decision will be helped by the new engineering study and input from the city's Historic Preservation Commission.

Tuesday's debate comes fresh off this week's unanimous recommendation from the commission - like one the commission made in May - that calls for the council to keep the three-story Knutson Building standing.

Most recently, the building, which opened in 1887 as a condensed milk factory in a riverfront industrial area, has housed a scrap yard and a haunted house at Halloween.

The city attempted to buy and demolish it through a condemnation process in the mid-1990s as it built a new police station across the street. Then in early 2013, the city bought it for $1.5 million to clean up the property as it opened its amphitheater.

Mark Stoffer Hunter, The History Center's historian and a member of the Historic Preservation Commission, said the City Council approved a new historic preservation ordinance this fall. and to not follow through on that with the Knutson Building 'would be a complete reversal,” he said.

'This is truly historic and has a very detailed historic story to it,” he said. 'It's the basis of the west-side, working-class, industrial story of Cedar Rapids.

Five years ago, after much back and forth, the council agreed to demolish a smokestack at the former Sinclair packing plant, in part because of the cost of keeping it. Preservationists wanted to save that, too.

Stoffer Hunter said the council has changed over five years and has gotten more supportive of preservation thanks to a push from preservationist groups like Save CR Heritage.

'It they choose demolition, there will be a great disappointment,” he said.

Mayor Ron Corbett said Friday that he is leaning toward the stabilization option to see if the city can raise private funds to cover up to half the renovation costs. That would allow the city to keep the building in city hands to support the amphitheater while preserving a piece of history, he said.

'It doesn't have the charm of the Paramount Theatre, but it's one of the oldest buildings on the west side,” the mayor said.