A plan is in the works to redevelop the old Sunny Brook Dairy building on Northwest Ninth Street, but there’s a hitch: The current tenants don’t want to move out.

The former dairy at 1025 N.W. Ninth, along with the house next door at 1045, is owned by Sunny Brook Development Corp. The whole 2-acre property is listed for sale at an asking price of just under $2 million.

“We have a purchase and sale agreement with another developer,” said Charlotte Fleming Tuttle of Sunny Brook Development.

She declined to name the prospective buyer or say what sort of redevelopment is planned for the property because the deal is not yet final.

“Nothing is a deal until all the contingencies are taken care of,” Tuttle said. “That is the process they’re in now.”

The first contingency on the would-be buyer’s “to do” list appears to be getting the current tenants to opt out of their leases.

“I had a meeting with the broker that’s trying to sell the place, and she asked me, ‘What’s it going to take to get you to move?’” said Hank Beuttel, a Farmers Insurance agent who has a 1,300-square-foot office in the Sunny Brook Dairy building.

“The new owner would like to level the place and build something else.”

But Beuttel’s not ready to relocate just yet. He moved into the building in March 1997, becoming the first commercial tenant to hang out his shingle in the converted dairy. Beuttel said he’s got one year left on his current lease, plus a couple of three-year options.

He said he’d consider leaving early in exchange for suitable compensation to cover the cost of relocating his business, but nothing’s been offered.

“I’ve got this place for seven years, but I’m being led to believe that ain’t gonna happen and I should be looking for other options,” he said.

Anita Risberg of A.D. Risberg Commercial and Investment Real Estate in Salem, the listing agent for the property, did not return a phone call seeking comment for this article.

But other Sunny Brook Dairy tenants say she also asked them to leave before their leases are up without any offer of compensation.

Audiologist Ron Leavitt has been in the building for two years, long enough for his elderly clientele to get used to the location. He’s got another year to go on his lease and he’s not anxious to relocate, especially without recouping the more than $4,000 he spent on improvements to his 1,100-square-foot office.

“They said that’s not going to happen,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt said there’s no clause in the lease that would let his landlords force him out early, but he’s worried they might put pressure on the tenants by moving ahead with construction on the redevelopment project.

“If they do that, they could drive us away just by virtue of no parking and all the noise,” Leavitt said.

“Our landlords would very much like to see us move,” said Dave Gilbert of the nonprofit Cornerstone Associates, which operates Sunny Brook Dairy anchor tenant Taylor Street Ovens. The bakery occupies 3,500 square feet and employs 21 people, most of them developmentally disabled adults.

“We have a long-term lease, an eight-year lease that we’re very comfortable with,” Gilbert added, “and we fully expect to be there for the remainder of the lease.”

Some of the tenants say they’ve been told the buyer is Regency Centers, the developer of the Corvallis Market Center, a new shopping center at 1550 N.W. Ninth St. anchored by such national retailers as TJ Maxx, Michaels Crafts and Dress Barn.

Craig Ramey, a vice president in the company’s Lake Oswego office, said he couldn’t confirm that Regency is the buyer or say what the company would do with the old dairy if it did buy the property.

“I never comment on projects until they’re far enough along that there’s some degree of certainty,” Ramey said.

It’s not clear what would happen to the 60-year-old dairy building if the property is sold, but speculation among the tenants is that it would be torn down.

The Sunny Brook Dairy was established in Corvallis by Roger Mills in 1921, according to Mary Gallagher, research librarian at the Benton County Historical Society.

The dairy started out on Second Street, then moved to Third and ultimately relocated to a new building on Ninth Street in 1948. It continued to operate in that location until the early to mid-’90s.

Local preservationists say they consider the building, with its Art Deco facade and glass brick panels, a landmark that ought to be saved. But Corvallis city planner Bob Richardson said the property is not listed on the national or local registers of historic buildings, so there would be nothing to stop a developer from razing the structure.

“Apparently there’s nothing we can do,” said Lyn Larson, secretary of Preservation Works! “It’s up for grabs. It’s just a building to some people.”

Maybe so, but it’s not just any building to Hank Beuttel.

“It’s a part of history,” he said. “Now they want to knock this place down and put up a strip mall, and I think that’s unfortunate.

“I think the town loses some of its character.”

Bennett Hall can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.