Downtown building to come down, making way for a retirement community

Teutsch Partners LLC, the Seattle-based real estate development firm that owns the Gambini building and adjacent parking lots, has filed plans with the City of Auburn to demolish the building and raise in its place a four-story retirement community, offering 111 assisted-living and 16 memory-care apartments.

Depending on whom you ask, the building sitting today off South Division between First and Second streets southeast is the Gambini block, or the Chamber of Commerce block, or some other name reflecting its long history.

Whatever one wants to call the two-story building, it is about to come down.

Teutsch Partners LLC, the Seattle-based real estate development firm that owns the building and adjacent parking lots, has filed plans with the City of Auburn to demolish the building and raise in its place a four-story retirement community, offering 111 assisted-living and 16 memory-care apartments.

Its 168,331 square feet of space will be divided between the below-grade parking level and three stories of memory-care units above ground, a mixture of one-bedroom, one-bath studio and two-bedroom, two-bath apartments.

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Plans for Merrill Gardens at Auburn show a U-shaped building with a center-landscaped courtyard, part of the courtyard accessible to the public, facing South Division.

There will be two entrances, the first off First Street Southeast and the second off Second Street Southeast.

City officials estimate construction could start sometime next spring.

Elizabeth Chamberlain, planning and design services manager for the City of Auburn, said Tuesday that Teutsch Partners, LLC had applied to the City for a demolition permit and that its application is under review.

In 2007, the Economic Development Administration awarded the City a $2.2 million federal grant and a $7.2 million local revitalization bond that upgraded streets, sidewalks and utilities to support such construction on South Division.

City officials estimate that between them, the Trek Apartment retail project on the former Cavanaugh block on East Main and the Merrill Gardens project on South Division will bring 300-500 new residents to the downtown core.

According to its website, Merrill Gardens, a privately-owned, family-run company, owns and operates 21 senior living communities in four states with a focus on lifestyle. Each Merrill Gardens community is different in physical structure, reflecting the characteristics of the area where it is and the needs of its residents.

Teutsch Partners, LLC was formed in 1987 as a privately-owned, regionally-focused, commercial real estate services and development company.