The preservation of the Alki Homestead, the historic structure and restaurant forced to close two years ago after a fire, was the subject of a press conference Jan. 16 conducted by a coalition of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, Historic Seattle, 4Culture and the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.

In the conference the group announced they are working with private investors (which they declined to identify) and "have had significant discussions with the building owner since last summer." The owner is Tom Lin, who also owns other properties on and around Alki.

But the conference and coalition may, in the end, mean very little. Lin now expects to proceed with the restoration personally.

The assembled group concluded that the building can in fact be preserved and restored. Just how that is done has been a matter of some debate between the historic preservation groups and Lin however. Both sides have conducted engineering studies, the most recent by Leavengood Architects led to the coaltion seeking the City of Seattle's "help in protecting the building from damage." They filed a request to that end with the Department of Planning and Development and announced this during the conference, though they offered no specifics.

Throughout the process of negotiating a sale, offers and terms have come and gone. Last July 4, The Alki Loghouse Museum and the Southwest Historical Society sponsored an event entitled "This Place Matters".

See our original coverage of the event here. At the press conference today they announced that a poster from that event would be distributed throughout West Seattle.

The day prior to that event, Lin made an offer to sell the building to any local historic preservation agency for $2 million but also vowed to issue a check back to the buyer in the amount of $500,000 to help fund the building's restoration. Lin, whose insurance on the building is through Lloyds of London would ostensibly receive $400,000 if the building was restored to "likewise status."

At the press conference Rick Sever from Historic Seattle said, "Our discussions with the owner of the Alki Homestead were undertaken in good faith but unfortunately we have not been able to come to terms with the owner despite our best efforts."

The West Seattle Herald contacted Lin who now believes the group was, in his opinion, not negotiating in good faith.

He said, "We had the purchase and sale agreement ready in September. We showed it to the lawyers and and the lawyers have spoken. They (the potential buyers) didn't want to sign it. They put no earnest money down. They have nothing at stake. If you really want to negotiate you sign the purchase and sale agreement after putting the earnest money down, then if there are terms you don't like, you can use that as a framework to continue to negotiate from there. They have done their due diligence but they have not put one single penny down. In any real estate transaction you put earnest money down to show good faith."

The crux of the debate between Lin and those interested in preservation is not over the value of historic preservation itself. It comes down to how and how much. The most recent discussions between the parties show that the financial gulf between them is very wide.

Lin set the price for the building and land, one block from Alki Beach at 1.5 million dollars, based on the most recent assessed value and ever since the fire has paid the mortgage on the building, plus taxes, and has paid for his own engineering studies. "I'm now down over half a million dollars," said Lin.

"I did not proceed with permitting because I had been waiting for them to sign the purchase sale agreement but the negotiations have gone on for six months," said Lin.

He stopped negotiating with Historic Seattle in December because he felt the negotiations had reached an impasse and he told the West Seattle Herald he will now proceed with the restoration himself.