Downtown Santa Rosa hotel project advances with plans to demolish century-old building

The iconic Empire Building in downtown Santa Rosa and the former Hahman Drug Co. building have a lot in common.

They sit cheek-by-jowl on the west side of the newly reunified Old Courthouse Square.

They were both built around 1908, two years after a devastating earthquake leveled much of the city.

And they both are playing important but very different roles in a high-profile project to bring a 62-room boutique hotel to downtown.

One will be preserved. The other will be demolished.

The diverging fates of the two structures has given city officials some pause.

Three weeks ago, the city’s Design Review Board was poised to sign off on the $19 million Courthouse Square Hotel project, including an exemption of the project from review under state environmental law. But such exemptions, which make potentially costly studies unnecessary, are not allowed when a “historical resource” is involved.

That put the project in jeopardy and the developer, Hugh Futrell, in a tricky position.

He had to convince the city that while the 1908 Empire Building was a historic structure worthy of preservation, the lowly Hahman Drug Co. structure, built that same year, did not deserve the same consideration.

He did so by making the case that the former drugstore building was essentially already gone.

“The building that currently stands at 25 Old Courthouse Square is not the historic Hahman Drug Company,” Futrell told the board last month. “That building no longer exists.”

He argued that there have been so many changes to the building over the years - to its interior, façade, windows, and doors - that there is nothing really left of that original structure, and therefore nothing worth saving.

He also noted that the building was not listed in previous surveys of historic buildings, did not appear on any historic registry, nor had any association with “the lives of persons important in our past,” a criteria that could result in historic protections for a building.

That’s where it gets a little confusing.

The Hahmans were one of Santa Rosa’s most important founding families.

German immigrant Feodor Gustav “Ted” Hahman partnered with Berthold “Barney” Hoen to help found Santa Rosa, and Hahman’s trading company was the first business established on the square around 1853, according to an account in “Santa Rosa: A 19th Century Town.”

There is a street in the Montgomery Village neighborhood named Hahman Drive.

But the drug store in question was built by his son, Paul T. Hahman, who according to a report by Susan Clark, the architectural historian hired by Futrell, “has no special significance in California’s heritage.”

She described the edifice as a “typical early 20th century vernacular commercial building.” It featured a display window and entrance on the first story, a transom of architectural glass across the façade, and three windows on the second story, which served as a doctor’s office for a time, according to Clark.

The drug store operated until at least 1965. The building has undergone several renovations that have changed the interior and exterior over the years, Clark found. The building’s most dominant feature today is its ominous black wooden grille covering the entire second story façade.

“Any contribution it made to the development of downtown Santa Rosa is no longer recognizable,” Clark wrote, adding that it “lacked integrity, historic significance, and retained no character definition elements of a historic building.”

Ground floor tenants in recent decades have included a hair salon, a nightclub and, most recently, a restaurant called Seed to Leaf. The building is owned by the Poulsen family, for whom the courtyard that will be created in its place will be named.

After Futrell provided additional historical documentation, the board on Thursday gave him its unanimous approval, as well as praise for architect John Worden’s overall design, which one board member called “masterful.”

“This is something that downtown Santa Rosa vitally needs,” board member Drew Weigl said.

The move clears the way for renovation of the interior of the Empire Building and demolition of its ill-fated, two-story neighbor to the south sometime in early fall, Futrell said.

If all goes well, the Empire Building portion of the project should be ready for occupancy in mid-2018, Futrell said. Another two-story building on the block, at 19 Old Courthouse Square, will get a total makeover, including a third story, rooftop patio, two ground-floor restaurants and coffee shop.

That work should be complete by the end of 2018.

By then, the clock-tower-topped Empire Building should be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, preventing it from ever being significantly changed, Futrell said.

Santa Rosa attorney Kevin Konicek’s father, Tom, worked in the Hahman drug store as a stock boy after World War II, and it inspired him to become a pharmacist, Konicek said.

He later purchased the drug store in the 1970s after it had moved near Memorial Hospital, Konicek said.

“What do I think about Hugh destroying the building? I think it’s great,” Konicek said. “I’m not going to shed any tears at all. I love the direction downtown is going.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.