PORT TOWNSEND — A new deal is soon to take place at Fort Worden State Park.
Over the years, care of the fort’s historic buildings — dating to the World War I and II eras — has been the obligation of Washington State Parks and, more recently, the Fort Worden Public Development Authority (PDA).
But the state hasn’t always had the funds available to fix those buildings, said Rob Birman, executive director of Centrum, one of the fort’s eldest tenants.
Then, in 2020, financial management problems at the PDA came to light, leading to the organization’s overhaul last year.
In a kind of rescue effort, PDA Executive Director David Timmons approached Birman with an idea: What if Centrum could manage Makers Square, the old PDA’s costly and convoluted project at the heart of the campus?
That brought on months of discussions plus a commissioned study of the fort’s building maintenance and renovation needs. And this week, Birman announced the formation of the Creative Alliance, a group of eight tenants in the fort’s arts and culture corridor.
The tenants are Centrum, Copper Canyon Press, Corvidae Press, KPTZ-FM, Madrona MindBody Institute, Northwind Art, the Port Townsend School of Woodworking and Rainshadow Recording. Their tenure at the fort ranges from 50 years, in Centrum’s case, to pending in the case of KPTZ, which has yet to move into its new studios in Building 305.
In their new lease agreements, these tenants together will take on the maintenance of the buildings they occupy, Birman said Tuesday. Centrum will take the lead as the alliance raises the money for such projects.
“This really is significant,” he said — of both the new agreement and the costs involved.
In the coming decades, the Creative Alliance will relieve the PDA of capital maintenance obligations totaling between $13.8 million and $23.7 million, Birman noted.
The tenants will have 25-year leases, over which time they will plan and execute the rehabilitation and repair of the 14 structures they use.
This work will come at minimal to no cost to the PDA, Birman said.
“Sharing the burden of the deferred maintenance at Fort Worden gives us all the best chance of not repeating the past,” which amounted to disinvestment, he added.
Forming the Creative Alliance, Birman believes, will open new doors to philanthropy. The group can seek grants from national and regional foundations as well as individual donors, he said; such supporters may well be more inclined to give to the Fort Worden collective, rather than to one organization at a time.
Some of the alliance members — Centrum, for one — already have matching grants on the table to add to this kind of support, Birman said.
Timmons, in an interview Tuesday, said the Creative Alliance is “basically a partnership approach” with the PDA.
“We’ve made some progress,” he said.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, to get all of the documents together and signed.”
Birman added that, in 2021, Centrum used a Murdock Charitable Trust grant to commission a study of “deficiencies” in the century-old buildings at the fort.
“Honestly, there are many,” he said, from plumbing to fire protection to heating and ventilation to roofing to lighting to flooring, doors, windows and ceilings.
“It just goes on and on,” through the arts and culture corridor, Birman said.
Timmons, for his part, said that in buildings 308 and 324 in Makers Square, water pipes burst amid the January cold snap. That damaged electrical components, he said.
But since there were no floor coverings nor sheetrock in those buildings, the harm wasn’t as severe as it could have been.
As the Creative Alliance partners look ahead and map out their projects, there will be some movement on the fort campus.
Centrum plans to share the 17,000-square-foot Building 305 with KPTZ, putting in classrooms and other elements, Birman said.
Northwind Art will relocate from its current space in Building 306 into Building 324, where it will have its classes, and into Building 308, which will become a home for fiber arts.
Birman didn’t say when these moves will take place, since first those 25-year leases have to be signed. He expects that to happen by the end of May.
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Jefferson County Senior Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
