New foundation for historic building

Katy Tahja

Reprinted with permission from the Mendocino Beacon

For more than 120 years the Jarvis Nichols building has stood on the corner of Main and Kasten streets in Mendocino facing the Pacific and experiencing the slow aging any big building endures. It's withstood storms, earthquakes and remodeling, but it's sagging, shifting and settling. Rescue work, in the form of a new foundation, is under way.

For the next four months, slowly and carefully, 12 feet at a time, excavation is taking place under this building housing Gallery Bookshop, the Courtyard, an art gallery, a chiropractor's office and residences. The original foundation and supports, which ranged from virgin redwood timbers to bricks and piles of rock and whiskey barrels of cement, are being replaced with a poured perimeter concrete foundation.

Barry Cusick, part of a partnership that owns the Jarvis Nichols building, is the mastermind behind the reconstruction, which may cost a third of a million dollars by the time it's finished. He's been after the partners for years to commit to a new foundation, wiring, plumbing and external remodeling to meet historic standards. There will also be handicapped access and ramps to all ground floor shops.

So how do you hold up a building full of shops and people on a temporary basis while digging out space for new foundations? You find a contractor with imagination, a holistic approach to keeping everyone in the building working while everyone under the building progresses forward and you hope your "worst case scenarios" do not come true. Local contractor Tim Loomis and his crew of carpenters and "miners" are busy at work.

Take, for example, the dirt under the structure. Hopes that it would be black sandy loam, easy to excavate, were dashed when workers, who laughingly call themselves "miners," found earth so solid they have to jackhammer it to remove it. And since the building has been settling there is very little crawl space available. The dirt is piled by the shovelful and coffee can full onto flat wagons to be slid out from under the corner of the building and then trucked away. A staggering 200 cubic yards of dirt is being removed by Loomis' "miners" in this manner.

Initially there was hope that steel girders could be extended under the building and the whole structure could be lifted off the ground while foundations were poured. Unfortunately, Cusick said the soil underneath the building is like a "jellyfish," hard in one place and saturated in another and unsuitable to support giant jacks, so the burrowing began. Workers marvel at how anyone got under the building in the first place. They found no access before digging their own, yet phone and power lines were under the building. Treasures have been found under the building including a glass oil lamp, an ink bottle, an etched sherry glass, abalone shells and square nails.

Foundation work does not require Historical Review Board approval but Cusick will meet with them in March to talk about remodeling the second story exterior of the north side where Bill Zacha added a rental unit years ago. That area will have V-Rustic siding added and double hung windows to replace the aluminum sliders there now. A blue curb handicapped parking space with a curb cut may be added on Kasten Street and brick ramps will eliminate steps into shops.

Contractor Loomis said this is the hardest project he's ever taken on as the building is big, possibly unstable, rotted in places and inhabited. Every time they open a new wall it's a shot in the dark as to what surprise awaits them. The east wall of the building has a lot of dry rot and powder post beetle damage. With moisture draining under the building to that wall, it has wicked up moisture and bubbled paint. When a paint bubble is popped water squirts out, yet he and Cusick joke it is probably the layers of paint that are holding the whole building together.

Ten years ago Cusick and his partners spent $90,000 to renovate the water tower at the back of the courtyard and now the Jarvis Nichols building will be restored. "This is what historic preservation is all about," Cusick said. "The building was going to fall down. There was nothing structurally holding it up. When we're done we hope it will be good for another 100 years."

And how are the shopkeepers in the building holding up with sidewalks being jackhammered outside the windows and floors vibrating as supports are affixed to the underpinnings? Gallery Bookshop manager Linda Pack said, "If we can sell books all through a four-day power failure in a storm, we can sell them during reconstruction."

All the shops will remain open while work progresses.