Everett CC to raze 1950s motel

Such a timely memento.

A picture postcard of the Topper Motel in its prouder days is for sale on eBay — with a buy-it-now price of $6.27, plus $1.50 shipping. The only recognizable feature of the once-respectable motor inn, built in 1953 along the old Pacific Highway, is the classic neon sign which still towers along the edge of Broadway in Everett's north end.

It too soon will disappear from modern memories.

Everett Community College, which bought the moldering eyesore earlier this year, has begun ripping the Topper down to create a gravel parking lot for workers constructing its latest campus expansion. The $52 million Gray Wolf Hall, just south of the student union, will house University Center and offer classes to students aiming for higher degrees.

The college plans to use the Topper site for parking long after Gray Wolf opens in 2009, said Michael Kearns, vice president of administration. When money becomes available, it will be paved, he said.

The college's higher priority is acquiring and developing a nine-acre triangle of land just north of the Topper, along Broadway between 10th and Tower streets, as a formal campus entry.

"Twenty-five to 30 years from now, it could be a building," Kearns said. "It's really that far away, based on what we know right now."

Residential communities typically aren't keen on new parking lots. But the Topper's purchase and demise are sweet developments for the surrounding neighborhoods, which for years had complained of crime associated with the motel's low-income residents.

The eBay postcard shows the motel in its clean-and-upright youth. Distinctly '50s sedans are pulled into the parking lot, angled next to units of the then-one-story motel.

"Everett's finest — televisions and radio," brags the postcard.

Decades later, a remodel camouflaged its motor-inn layout, adding a second-story addition stretching along the street.

The 1967 opening of Interstate 5, which replaced Broadway as the prime Seattle-to-Canada thoroughfare, doomed the Topper. Eventually, it declined into filth and disrepair, and in 2005 it was ordered closed by state health inspectors.

Neighbors cheered when the college bought the property, boarded up its windows and put up fencing to keep out homeless squatters.

Perhaps the most pleased was Jesus Hernandez, owner of the Dos Reales restaurant next door. A vacation to Mexico means he's missing the demolition.

"He really wanted to see it!" exclaimed his daughter, Lolita Hernandez. "He'll be happy when he comes back."

Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com