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Clean gone, Capitol Hill laundromat Lather Daddy loses lease

Empty! (Image: CHS)

A 12th Ave space that has been home to a laundromat business for decades is shuttered and empty to start 2019. Lather Daddy lost its lease and is no more.

“We had steady clientele who had been coming there for years,” owner Luis Moreno told CHS about the closure. He purchased the laundromat about four years ago and had been operating it until late last year when he said building owner Shurgard Storage let him know they would not be open to renewing the lease.

 

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The storage company which operates the location under its Public Storage brand has put the laundromat space back on the retail real estate market in search of a new tenant.

CHS covered the 2011 sale and overhaul of the old 12th Ave Laundry founded by Paul Remillard “in the late 1980s.” Along with a new, neighborhood wink-worthy brand, Lather Daddy added features like music, cable TV, and wireless internet.

Moreno said he is sad to see the long run of the laundromat come to an end with many neighborhood residents dependent on building laundry rooms with long waits and often broken down equipment. A search of recent listings for Capitol Hill apartments show just under 40% of the ads promising washer/dryer setups in the unit.

Meanwhile, Moreno says his search for a possible new laundromat space on Capitol Hill has been fruitless — the “price per square footage is ridiculous.”

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chs fan
chs fan
5 years ago

First, they came for the auto repair garage at Pine and Harvard. Then they came for the vacuum shop at 13th and Pike. The video store(s) on Broadway, as well as many of the the fringe theaters, were next. Now? The laundromat on 12th. Up next: The shoe repair shop in Broadway Market . . . the barber shop on 15th . . . Tacos Guaymas . . . A Cheesecake Factory could TOTALLY fit inside the former Broadway Grill space!

Sloopy
Sloopy
5 years ago
Reply to  chs fan

I don’t think we can blame the demise of video stores on development.

They might as well put in a Cheesecake Factory or PF Changs in the old Broadway Grill, this neighborhood has been “hip” in a touristy, out of towner sense for the last 10 years.

Brad R
Brad R
5 years ago

Good. They were obnoxious. I switched laundromats months ago.

Nate b
Nate b
5 years ago
Reply to  Brad R

You’re absolutely right…. things went downhill pretty quick with the new owners. There are more about money then servicing their customers.

Santiago Aguilar
5 years ago

It used to be a better place to do laundry until the owner changed things and it went downhill from there. I stopped going there and went farther out to do laundry.

ChuDlife
ChuDlife
5 years ago

It would be a perfect spot for a Walgreens or a Chase bank branch.

JefferyK
JefferyK
5 years ago

Where are people in the neighborhood doing their laundry now? My apartment has an in-unit small-capacity washer — it isn’t big enough to wash, let’s say, a heavy blanket. No communal large-capacity washers in my building. No car to drive to a laundromat in another neighborhood. Seattle is supposed to be a city — that means services such as laundromats, hardware stores, grocery stores, and post offices — should be in residential neighborhoods and accessible by foot.

Eric Hutcheson
Eric Hutcheson
5 years ago
Reply to  JefferyK

Crystal Clean next to the city market is the only laundromat on the hill now I beleive.