A downtown Aberdeen business owner has complained to the city about conditions at and around the nearly vacant Seafirst office building at the corner of Broadway and Market Street. The structure’s ground-level parking garage has become a shelter to some local homeless people when the weather is bad.
Scott Olsen of City Center Pharmacy, 108 E. Wishkah St., which is just across the alley from the office building, said more homeless people are congregating around the area. The Aberdeen Timberland Library is next door to the Seafirst Building and across the street on Market are City Hall and the Police Station.
“Business owners in the area are now dealing with an encampment that is growing in nature and scope. Public defecation, drunkenness, garbage accrual and fear of walking to one’s car is now a daily event,” Olsen wrote in an email addressed to Mayor Erik Larson and sent Tuesday. The correspondence also went to other city officials and community members.
Surrounding business owners have been cleaning up human waste left in the alley between buildings on Market and Wishkah streets. They’re also trying to secure garbage containers that are repeatedly broken into and vandalized, Olsen said. Businesses obtain locks and chains for the receptacles but those are removed by homeless people who rummage through and leave garbage on the ground, Olsen said.
The Olsen family encased their own garbage receptacles with fencing but expressed frustration the city has cited business owners over the trash instead of taking measures that would stop the receptacles from being targeted.
“We are asking for your immediate response and action to be taken to remove this encampment, secure the facility and bring safety back to this retail area,” Olsen wrote to the mayor.
He asked for code enforcement employees to step in after seeing such things at the Seafirst Building as the broken fence doors that swing into the alley.
“We don’t want to wait until the world’s homeless problem is figured out before the City gets involved,” he said. “They have to be proactive.”
Olsen suggested more police presence downtown could improve the situation downtown, such as officers walking downtown streets and alleys daily.
Bank of America had been located on the ground floor, but moved out more than a year ago. Other office tenants have moved out and now only a local law firm remains in the building.
Olsen also said he believes that if nothing is done to address the vagrancy someone could be “assaulted or worse.”
Olsen has heard homeless people have entered the building. He worries it’s vulnerable to broken water lines, windows and doors and, potentially, even a structure fire.
Such problems are “all just around the corner,” he said.
“I have not been made aware of anyone breaking into the building,” Larson said. “If there’s anything there we can address, we’ll address it.”
He said he’s aware of the human waste and litter problems, and pointed out that the building’s ownership has been complicated in the past few years. It has been up for auction, but at least one sale reportedly fell through. The building is listed as being owned by Seattle First National Bank since 2003, according to the Grays Harbor County Assessor’s office.
The city, Larson wrote in an e-mail reply “is in the process of hiring two additional staff members under the supervision of the Parks Department to address this issue. I am hopeful this will have a drastic impact on the problem. We are also looking at options for locating a public restroom downtown. Rest assured, I do not intend to ‘wait until the world’s homeless problem is figured out.’”
Stacie Barnum, head of city Parks and Recreation, reported to the City Council on Wednesday night that the two new employees in the Parks Department started work this week.
Because many of the problems are on the private property itself, the city can’t do anything about those matters. Larson urged people who see illegal entry or other unlawful things going on there or in the surrounding area to report such incidents to police.
Olsen also emphasized that the homeless people aren’t to blame for the situation because most of them are there only because they have nowhere else to go.
This office building at 101 E. Market St., in downtown Aberdeen is called the Seafirst building. An increasing number of homeless people have been congregating in its covered parking lot and nearby. (Terri Harber|The Daily World)
