Hundreds can’t return home nearly a week after fire in downtown Tacoma apartment building

Hundreds of people remain displaced after an electrical fire in the basement of a low-income apartment building in downtown Tacoma late last week.

According to a tweet from the Tacoma Fire Department, crews responded to a commercial structure fire at the Winthrop Apartments, 776 Commerce St., about 10:30 p.m April 13.

“While the fire damage was contained to the electrical vault area, smoke traveled up several floors of the 12-story structure. Three occupants were treated on the scene for smoke exposure and transported in stable condition for further medical care,” the fire department tweeted.

The Winthrop Apartments building has 200 units, and residents said they haven’t been given clear guidance from property managers about when they can return.

The American Red Cross has set up a temporary shelter at the Lighthouse Senior Center for 250-300 residents and their pets.

As of Monday, resident Joshua Calhoun said the building was shut down without electricity. A single father to two, Calhoun said he’s still trying to figure out what to do.

“All our food is gone,” he said. “They said it’s uninhabitable still, so we can’t stay there.”

In an email to the The News Tribune on Tuesday, Reed Dunn, director of marketing and communications at Redwood Housing said, “With the assistance of the Red Cross, all residents have been temporarily relocated.”

Dunn said the fire damaged internal building systems. The company is actively working with electricians and local authorities to return power to the building so it can be occupied by residents.

He said there is no known damage to residential units, and residents continue to have access to their apartments to retrieve personal belongings as needed. Management is working with tenants to address their concerns as information is available, Dunn said.

“We are continuing to work closely with the Tacoma Fire Department, the City of Tacoma, and several other organizations to determine the full extent of damage to The Winthrop. As described below, this was a significant electrical fire in the basement that damaged several building systems,” Dunn wrote in the statement. “Our team is working tirelessly to return power to the building and allow residents to return to their homes. As always, the health and safety of our residents is of the utmost importance.”

Families left displaced, distraught after evacuation

About 60 people have been staying at the Red Cross’s temporary shelter since the fire. Residents have been given access to medical care and basic shelter, the Salvation Army has donated hot meals and volunteers have distributed snacks, said American Red Cross volunteer Bruce McNicholas on Tuesday.

Nicole Holberg has lived in the Winthrop Apartments for about a decade and is staying at the temporary shelter with her boyfriend and his dog. Holberg said there have been fires at the apartment building before, but when the fire alarm went off on Thursday, she thought it was a false alarm.

“But the minute the lights went out and the power went out, I was like, OK, this is not good,” she said. “We started to smell smoke. Everybody kind of got panicky and everything. After that, we were all outside for hours. It was like late at night. Everybody was freezing. A lot of animals were still stuck [inside], and disabled people who cannot walk or anything. That was very, very sad.”

After a few hours Holberg said residents were told they would be able to stay the night in the building without power. On Friday she was transferred to the temporary shelter with dozens of her neighbors.

“It was very hard for everybody when we got here. I mean, nobody really knew how this is going to work out. The good thing about all this is everybody’s helping everybody, which is the way it should be,” Holberg said. “We are still not getting any information. We’re getting told it’s gonna be weeks, months before we get our place.”

Holberg said she’s grateful family is helping take care of her cat, but she knows of others who were forced to leave their pets behind.

Teela Lanchester said the past week has been very stressful.

A single mom, Lanchester said she was pet-sitting when the fire broke out and had to quickly find housing for her and her 7-year-old daughter, as well as a dog and two cats. At the temporary shelter, animals have to be kept in cages, and Lanchester said she didn’t feel comfortable sleeping on cots for an indeterminate amount of time in a gymnasium with her daughter.

“I’d been making calls all day to try and find a place that might be able to board the cats. But most of them, even in an emergency situation, would cost money that we didn’t have,” she said Wednesday. “So I had to get my grandma who lives in Glenoma [Lewis County] to come pick up my daughter and take my daughter for all of this, and then I found a place that could take me and my cats, so we didn’t have to basically abandon our cats.”

Lanchester said she wasn’t able to go back into the building to get her medications and other belongings and food she needed this past week, and said phone calls to management haven’t been answered.

“It’s Wednesday. I have not seen my daughter in five days because she’s in Glenoma and I am in Bonney Lake. I have been so stressed out trying to make phone calls, trying to figure out what is going on, trying to figure out if we’re even going to be able to live in the apartment after all this, that I’ve made myself sick,” Lanchester said. “I have broken down crying. And I’m so stressed because I still have no clear answer.”

On Wednesday, Dunn said residents continue to have access to their apartments and the management team is in communication with residents and sharing updates as they are available. There was no new information he could share about when residents can expect to return.

What do we know about Winthrop Apartments?

California-based Redwood Housing Partners LLC bought the Winthrop Hotel in 2015 with help from Washington’s affordable housing commission to maintain the building as affordable housing. The 12-story historic property was built in 1925 and was converted to affordable housing apartments in 1973.

The historic building suffered from neglect by its previous owners and was in need of various upgrades and maintenance at the time of the sale.

Dunn said they are still accessing system damages caused by Friday night’s fire and has no further information on the damage at this time.