A city-sponsored study has found historic significance in a small stone-clad building that was slated to be torn down under a city plan to build senior housing next to City Hall.

The 81-page report, by Knapp & VerPlank Preservation Architects of San Francisco, found that the approximately 83-year-old building at 10848 San Pablo Ave. is historic because for many years it housed the Contra Contra Florist business operated by the Mabuchi family and thus is an important surviving representative of the once thriving Japanese-American nursery industry in northern El Cerrito and adjoining part of Richmond.

Specifically, Knapp & VerPlank concluded that the structure "appears eligible for listing in the California Register (of Historical Resources)." The firm said this designation means that destroying the building could have "a significant adverse effect on the environment," thus imposing a larger burden for the city to comply with the environment impact requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

The El Cerrito Historical Society has been waging a campaign to preserve the structure, particularly because of its historic ties to the Japanese-American community that clustered around the nursery industry. The Mabuchi family ran their florist and associated nursery at the site from 1935 to 1965, except for the time they were interned during the removal of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II.

The distinctive structure was built in the "Storybook" architectural style with its steeply pitched gable roofs and stone cladding. It was originally an office for a rock quarry. Now vacant and owned by the city, the building's last tenant was the El Cerrito Chamber of Commerce.

The city has been working with Eden Housing of Hayward to build a 64-unit, four-story complex of affordable senior housing on the site of the former florist building and the larger former Tradeway furniture building next door. The project also would include some retail space and a medical clinic.

Eden's original proposal called for knocking down the building, while also remembering it in the complex's small plaza, to be named "Heritage Plaza."

At an Oct. 4 community meeting on the proposed development, Eden representatives displayed possible alterternative designs that would keep the stone-clad buidling but said such options would sacrifice five units of senior housing, add bulk to the main building and dwarf the stone-clad structure.

The city's Design Review Board looked at the proposal on Oct. 5, and four of the panel's five members urged preserving the stone-clad building by relocating it elsewhere.

The city and Eden commissioned Knapp & VerPlank to conduct a historic assessment of the Tradeway and florist buildings. The assessment found that the Tradeway structures on the site lack historic importance.

Asked by Patch about the impact of the Knapp & VerPlank report, Tom Panas, a director of the Historical Society, provided an explanation saying in part, "Any site or structure that is either on the California Register of Historical Resources or appears eligible for listing on the California Register of Historical Resources, per CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act), cannot be moved or altered without either the completion of a full Environmental Impact Report or an officially adopted Mitigated Negative Declaration."

Panas hosted a festive gathering attended by about 20 people at his home last Wednesday to mark the designation of the florist buidling as a historic resource.

The Knapp & VerPlank study was released on Oct. 26, and El Cerrito Manager Scott Hanin reported the results to the City Council in a memo the next day, saying in part, "The report concludes that the former Contra Costa Florist/Mabuchi House complex at 10848 San Pablo Avenue has historical significance as a property that appears eligible for listing in the California Register for its association with the Japanese American cut-flower industry in El Cerrito and Richmond and its association with Japanese American immigration and settlement in western Contra Costa County."

The report noted that a property can be eligible for the California Register for its association with any of four criteria: 1) events, 2) persons, 3) architecture, or 4) information potential. The study found that it appears eligible because of its association with events.

A copy of the Knapp & VerPlank report is attached to this article.

A meeting sponsored by Eden Housing on the senior housing project is scheduled for 11 a.m. to noon, Nov. 14, at the El Cerrito Senior Center.