A vote for Old City Hall could win $10,000 for preservation | Community Spirit

The discussion of the fate of Tacoma's Old City Hall is perhaps one of the most frustrating for Tacoma-lovers, who long for someone to do something, anything with the historic building to keep it from going the way of the ill-fated Luzon Building.

The building currently stands empty, more than a year after a broken sprinkler pipe flooded it with major water damage.

Now, help could be on the way, via a partnership between Dwell Magazine and Sub-Zero called "rethinking preservation."

Says the magazine:

We believe that designing for the modern world begins with honoring the precedents of the past. So we joined forces with Sub-Zero to conceive a contest dedicated to rethinking preservation and you delivered! We received dozens of entries and now it’s time to vote! Here’s how it works. We post for popular vote and a panel of judges selects the winner from the top ten that receive the most votes. We’ll donate $10,000 to a worthy preservation organization and the winning architectural do-gooder receives a wine storage unit from Sub-Zero. To get in the preservation spirit read our special digital issue Rethinking Preservation presented by Sub-Zero.

Local blog Exit 133 put out the call for local submissions last month, and Historic Tacoma member Gerry Sperry answered.

Modeled after Italian Renaissance town halls, the 1893 structure features fine brickwork and terracotta ornamentation. The distinctive clock was added to the tower in 1904. The building first housed the Chamber of Commerce and was then occupied by the City which moved out in 1959. In the early 1980s, the structure was rehabilitated to house shops, restaurants and offices. In 2005, the iconic building was purchased with ambitious plans to convert it into a condominium building but the building sat idle and, due to deferred maintenance, was severely damaged by water infiltration in late 2010. A city building inspector declared the building in derelict condition in December 2010 .... read more.

Visit the Dwell website to read the rest of Sperry's entry, view the rest of the submissions, and, of course, vote for your favorite preservation project.