PORT ANGELES — The fate of the former Gottschalks location may be decided next month when the owners decide whether to remodel the downtown building.

The board members of the K.O. Erickson Trust — which owns the 34,900-square-foot building at 200 W. First St. — will meet Oct. 13 to decide whether to continue to market the structure to department stores or to remodel the location to house several smaller tenants.

The building has been vacant since the Port Angeles Gottshalks closed in May after liquidators purchased the Gottshalks chain in an auction. The company had filed for bankruptcy protection in January.

Multiple, smaller tenants may be the future for the building because of the recession, said the trust’s realtor, Dan Gase.

Gase said large retailers are showing little to no interest in opening new locations because of the economic climate.

The Port Angeles department store closed, along with Gottschalks Inc.’s 61 other stores, after the Fresno, Calif.-based company filed for bankruptcy in January.

The board got a taste of how the building could be revamped Tuesday from Portland, Ore., architect Frank Schmidt.

The three options offered by Schmidt, which only apply to the first floor, are: one main tenant with three or four other median-sized businesses, eight or nine small tenants, and one large tenant with a few modifications to the building.

Pat Hyden, board secretary and treasurer, said the board members have a lot to think about over the next month.

“We need to let that settle in our heads a bit,” she said.

“We need to think about this before we rush into it.”

No department store

Redesigning the building to accommodate more than one tenant would leave downtown without a location that can house a department store.

City Manager Kent Myers, who is also a board member, said that’s a reality that the city may have to accept.

“We just got to see what the market will bear,” he said.

“They [board members] want retail, and that still directs our efforts.

“But smaller retail, there may be a larger market for that use. So I favor that approach.”

The building housed three department stores — Peoples, Lamonts and Gottschalks — over five decades.

Each served as an anchor store for downtown.

Port Angeles Downtown Association Executive Director Barb Frederick is taking the same position on the issue as Myers.

“Ideally, a department store would be great, but at this point in time, that is probably unrealistic,” she said, “and probably unrealistic for awhile.”

Other hurdles

Although attracting another large retailer has shown to be problematic, filling a building with many smaller tenants in a city with its share of vacancies has its own hurdles, Gase admits.

He said the trust has the biggest chance of attracting tenants from out of the area if it goes with the option that provides for about four medium-sized tenants.

“The real big ones,” Gase said, “are not real motivated to make moves, but a business on a 16,000-square-foot requirement … has a higher likelihood of choosing that location.”

If the building is modified to provide space for many small tenants, he said the building may only be marketable to existing businesses around Port Angeles since there are few new or expanding local companies.

That would not result in reducing any vacant commercial spaces.

“It’s one of the things that we don’t want to do,” Gase said. “We don’t think that would be a very good thing for the city.”

The trust donates its lease revenue from the building to five local charities — Port Angeles Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts, Port Angeles Salvation Army, Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Red Cross and the Clallam County Family YMCA. It does the same with its lease revenue from tenants at 102 and 104 E. First St.

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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.