Back when talk of redeveloping Bellingham's waterfront began, officials said it might be possible to reuse some of the old industrial buildings on the site.

We thought that odd, considering the heavy industrial and somewhat "dirty" uses that went on inside Georgia-Pacific Corp.'s mill.

But it seemed an exciting idea. What if our new waterfront had old buildings? It seemed like charm and a sense of history would be built in.

Unfortunately, it appears doubts about reusing old pulp kilns and brick buildings laced with pipes, carrying everything from water to chlorine, were on target.

Port of Bellingham officials told the Waterfront Advisory Group last week that not much of what stands on the G-P property today is reusable. The problem: the buildings were built to stand on the outside of heavy machinery, not to hold floors and walls for apartments or shops or offices.

Making one into the other may prove prohibitively expensive.

We encourage officials making decisions on the waterfront redevelopment to quickly abandon, and demolish, the old shells of buildings should they stand in the way of redevelopment.

There is already going to be a high price to pay for environmental concerns and infrastructure, such as roads and water and sewer lines, on the site. Marrying the development to even more outrageous costs for saving old buildings seems likely to create one of two effects; making redevelopment too expensive for developers, or saddling taxpayers with extra costs to save the buildings for redevelopment.

The city and port are already expecting to be on the hook for around $350 million in environmental and infrastructure costs. Given that price tag, and all the complexities of turning a former pulp and paper mill and chemical and chlorine plant into a usable, developable piece of land, adding cost and difficulty in order to save a few bricks seems over the top.

We love old buildings. We feel blessed to live in a community with so many of its historic buildings not just still standing, but an important part of our community identity. But old industrial buildings are not the same as old office buildings or apartment complexes that just need to be remodeled. More important now is that the redevelopment not get bogged down in expensive details that will halt the whole project.

We are entering an important time, where the details going forward can lead to quick, meaningful redevelopment, or years of in-fighting and complaints. Western Washington University and port officials are just about to announce their partnership to help raise development funding for Western's planned campus on the site. Mayor Dan Pike is working hard to forward a plan for a new central library and parking garage. We imagine developers are starting to consider pieces of the property they can acquire to advance development.

We hope our community, and its citizens, are ready to push ahead and not get too caught up in saving an old building here or there. Change on the waterfront is coming, and its arrival gets closer every day. We look forward to the economic, educational and recreational opportunities those changes will create.