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Two old apartment buildings on the corner of Northeast Sixth Avenue and Couch Street are disappearing slowly. The vanishing act is the painstaking work of The ReBuilding Center, which provides deconstruction services as a sustainable alternative to demolition.

Developer Brad Fowler of acquired the buildings 鈥� one with four stories and one with two and a half 鈥� in 2006. He has since planned for the half-block between Couch and Davis streets to be transformed into a mixed-use development. But he didn’t want to sacrifice historic materials in the process.

While deconstruction does cost significantly more 鈥� up to 50 percent more, according to Fowler 鈥� than traditional demolition, the existing buildings’ character led to the decision in favor of the six-week-long deconstruction project.

J.D. Elder, president of , estimated that a traditional demolition would have removed the buildings safely in less than two weeks and would have cost about five times less. Materials would have been recycled rather than salvaged.

Fowler noted that the buildings were constructed in the early 1900s, and had systems and an envelope that were in disrepair. However, he added that many fixtures, trim work and even functional pocket doors with original stained finishes were worth saving.

鈥淚t was the right thing to do,鈥� Fowler said. 鈥淥ur feeling was that it would be a shame to waste all of the old-growth lumber (approximately 105 years old) that could be reclaimed.鈥�

The tax benefit of deconstruction also can shrink a cost gap substantially, depending on the value of reclaimed and donated materials. They will be appraised at the end of the process, Fowler said.

鈥淕iven the size of the new project, our feeling is that, although it won’t be easy, we can absorb this difference 鈥� especially if the majority of materials can be reclaimed,鈥� he said.

Fowler contacted Shane Endicott, executive director of , to begin deconstructing the combined 11,439 square feet. The team is working backward from the way the apartments were built, systematically removing materials from the roof to the foundation by hand. Salvaged items are then loaded onto custom racks, inventoried and either donated to community projects or transported to the reuse warehouse on North Mississippi Avenue, where visitors can browse through sinks, tubs, tile, lumber, doors, windows, trim and more.

The Couch Street apartments is the largest single project The ReBuilding Center has taken on in the past seven years, said Endicott, who expects that 85 percent of materials from the deconstruction will be reclaimed for reuse.

鈥淒oing this is definitely not the fastest way to get the buildings down, but it’s going to yield the most environmental benefits,鈥� Endicott said. A poster near the work site displays the approximate benefits that the nail-by-nail, board-by-board removal will yield. According to The ReBuilding Center, because deconstruction was chosen instead of demolition, the project is saving the equivalent of 189 mature trees, 2,860 pounds of greenhouse gases from being released and 13,727 gallons of fresh, clean water from being used.

Despite a longer process and larger expense, Fowler was committed to making it work, Endicott said. The sustainable deconstruction is making way for contractor to start work this fall on eight live-work units, 62 market-rate apartments and 3,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The modern exterior of the building will update the look of the Northeast Portland corner, and will feature a common rooftop deck, rooftop-mounted solar panels to assist in heating hot water and generous bicycle storage. Plus, the Vallaster and Corl Architects team incorporated turn-of-the-century recovered materials into the design.

鈥淚t’s a close enough equation where it really makes sense to look at it,鈥� Fowler says of opting for deconstruction. 鈥淚f you go by the site, you can see how much is being salvaged. It’s remarkable.鈥�