Mel’s Lumber and True Value Hardware Store at 120 First St., northwest of Auburn City Hall served the Auburn community for a half-century, but it has been closed for many years.
Still, out of the public eye, the building has not been idle.
In 2005, a company owned by Jeff Oliphant, the developer behind the Auburn Professional Plaza east of City Hall and the Auburn Justice Center remodel, bought the property. Oliphant and his partners then entered into a contract with South County Housing and Outreach (SCHO) that allowed the organization to use the building for various nonprofit purposes, including storage and alternative meeting space.
Now, four years later, Oliphant is getting ready to tear down Mel’s.
“There’s a lot of historical significance, but the building is completely unusable and dilapidated, and we’re in need of parking and some further development, so Mr. Oliphant and his partners are working to make that site more usable in the interim for Auburn residents,” said Michael Hursh, human services manager for the City of Auburn.
Hursh said five nonprofits, including the Auburn Food Bank and White River Presbyterian Church, have been using the space when they needed to do so. He added that he made these arrangements as a SCHO member, not as a city employee.
Oliphant’s gesture also allowed Auburn’s Emergency Management team to conduct CERT trainings and drills in there, and Valley Regional Fire Authority and the Auburn Police Department have used the building for training and special operations.
On a visit to the buillding last week, Oliphant said it has been his pleasure.
“We are very pleased to have been able to provide the Mel’s building to local charities for the past four years,” Oliphant said. “This is something that all business should do when they are able. All of us should help those in need in the community.”
Last week Roger Soderling, a retired construction worker working for a demolition contractor, was inside the old building, loosening up joints to prepare for demolition.
“We’re going to salvage as much of this heavy timber and old growth stuff as possible,” Soderling said. “I am actually building a house down in Vancouver, Wash., on the east fork of the Lewis River, and I am going to include some of these beams in that. I am working with their demolitiion contractor on a plan to demolish this in the greenest way possible.”
Hursh took aim at some of the unpleasant things that critics of the current administration and of downtown redevelopment have hinted about Oliphants relationship with the city.
“There have been inferences by some of the candidates for election that there is collusion, or that there is some kind of benefit that is underhanded,” Hursh said. “That is completely untrue, and it is quite slanderous to people who are involved and have made an investment and are committed to a redeveloped downtown that’s good for everybody.
“The tax records are public, they are misread and misinterpreted, and a little more homework and a little more understanding rather than conspiracy theories would be appropriate,” Hursh said.
