One of the loudest complaints from Aberdeen residents, the issue of vacant buildings in the downtown corridor, is being addressed but city officials say they need time to fully fix it.

As of now, according to city statistics, there are 41 vacant buildings. And they’re easy to spot.

Josh Padgett, the city’s building official, gave an update Wednesday night about the city’s Vacant Building Program. The program was designed to “assist in preserving the buildings of Aberdeen and maintaining forward progress to aid in reaching the city’s full potential.”

The program is in the early stages but it’s already provided early results.

“We started this program roughly a year ago today,” Padgett said before he introduced his team, who consist of Padgett, Lindy Dansare and DJ Cox. “Without them I wouldn’t ever do this because they aid me in kind of communicating with the property owners and also educating them on why we do this and what the city is trying to get done, what we’re striving for.”

Padgett said the point of the program is “designed to assist in preserving the buildings” so that someone can make something out of them.

Of the 41 vacant commercial buildings in downtown Aberdeen, 19 are registered with the vacant building program. Another 19 are in progress of being registered and three are non-compliant. Of the 41 buildings, 16 of them sit along Wishkah Street, eight are on Heron Street, six are on Market Street, four are on State Street, and the last seven vacancies are divided between 1st Street, F, G, K, I, Park and Broadway streets.

Padgett outlined how it was a little more than a year ago when the program started.

“In Sept. 2023 we started sending out notices to the property owners,” Padgett said. “We had 41 vacant (but) 13 now have active businesses, 10 are actively making repairs or steps towards demolishing, three are non-compliant. Eight I have communicated with regarding plans, which no permits are in place right so it’s just communication. And six have not provided any future plans.”

Padgett spoke about a couple of the “success stories.” One of those properties sits at 212 E. Wishkah St. The building has the sign that says “Vintage 90’s ANNATIQUES.”

“This one probably is one of the biggest ones because this one’s actually got 18 newly remodeled apartments in it,” Padgett said. “We’re actually getting ready to get them their certificate of authenticity so they can start renting these out.”

Another one of the spaces talked about was the former Thunderbird Motel. Liz Ellis, Aberdeen City Councilor, asked about it. Padgett explained.

“With the existing office now their future plans are to make that as a restaurant and then they’re going to demolish a section … and then they’ve got parking,” Padgett said. “They’re actually going to remodel the remaining units and then they’re going to build a new portion for the new office.”

Padgett said the goal for the city is to “create a place where people want to stop and walk around the streets, visit the shops and give people a reason to get together.”

“To do this, we need to bring in new business,” Padgett said. “With new businesses, we hope to create more community events and potentially with these new businesses they’ll help grow the existing community events that we already have.”

Padgett said after a year there are a couple things he’d like to change. One of those things is to eliminating the inspection fees to where “we can legally send a notice stating we’re going to do the inspection on a certain day … and then we potentially up the registration fees.”

“Another item I’d like to bring up is some of these parcels for the commercial spaces actually have leasing spaces in them,” Padgett said. “And right now with the way the code’s written as long as there’s one occupant in that space now we have other spaces that are sitting vacant.”

Deb Hodgkin, Aberdeen City Councilor, said how the city needs to “motivate people to do something rather than just use it as a write-off and then the building kind of crumbles.”

But as Lisa Scott, Community Development Director, pointed out, the vacant building program is “about all that we can do.” She explained why.

“We are not legally allowed to fine people for ugly or vacant buildings,” Scott said. “We can hold them accountable to the building code standards but we are not able to fine them.”

Hodgkin asked how can the city hold them accountable.

“This program,” Scott said.

Hodgkin asked about consequences the city can levy on the building owners for not following the program.

“Basically if they don’t follow the (Aberdeen Municipal Code) … the next step would be we move towards the abatement program and/or get code enforcement involved,” Padgett said.

Scott explained how Washington state passed “stricter rules for privately owned buildings and what we can and cannot fine people for. Having a vacant building isn’t one we are allowed to. Other states certainly do. We just aren’t able to.”

Ruth Clemens, Aberdeen’s City Administrator, weighed in on the job that Scott and Padgett’s team is doing.

“I would like to really commend Director Scott and Josh for their work on this program,” Clemens said. “This program has been in existence for a year and if you go back to the current vacant property slide you’ll see how many building property owners we were able to get to enroll. It is slow moving but we have already received feedback that downtown is improving. And most of all we’ve been able to build a really strong relationship with Emmert International, who owns quite a few of the properties that are listed here, and who work with them. I really commend Josh and his team. They’ve worked with them, they’ve built really strong relationships with them in order to gain compliance, in order to motivate them to move in the direction of repairing their buildings, and getting them back to a place where we can get more businesses located downtown. I thank Lisa and Josh for their work on this.”

Contact Reporter Matthew N. Wells at matthew.wells@thedailyworld.com.