(Image: Hewitt with permission to CHS)

Another day. Another vision of the future for Broadway. CHS has details on the plan to breathe new life into the Frederick Anhalt-designed 1929 Del Teet building just north of Dick’s Drive-in.

You probably know it as the former home of Hollywood Video and occasional Scientology pop-up. Soon, it will be transformed:

The applicant proposes an adaptive reuse of the existing building for a newmulti-family residential project with 22-26 market-rate units of lofts and flats. The applicant’s intent is to retain and restore the facades of the existing structure, construct one level of retail space, and five levels of residential units.

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The design review for the project isn’t yet on the calendar — DPD is stacked up these days, it seems — but the project from real estate investor Ron Amundson and developer Maria Barrientos is moving forward.

Designed by Hewitt, the mixed-use project is being planned concurrently to Amundson’s Harvard Ave project behind Dick’s that we documented earlier this year: Unlocking ’embedded value’ of Capitol Hill, prolific investor joins development wave

Barrientos points out that though the area isn’t part of the Pike/Pine preservation incentive zone, the Del Teet project would fit the model with its plan to retain the existing masonry facade of the old building and the set-back planned for the new portion of the construction.

“We’re keeping the building as intact as possible,” Barrientos tells CHS about the Broadway project. An existing skylight structure will be extended to become a European-style central court. Heavy old timbers from the building will be re-incorporated. At street-level, retail will remain but the upper floors of the existing structure will be melded with new construction to create a three-story building with two floors of living units and lofts.

“Broadway will be totally different,” Barrientos said. “The industrial lofts — we haven’t finished the plan exactly yet — but they will be either 1 or 2 bedroom.”

“Everybody else is building for the totally tiny units. We wanted to go after a different demographic.”

The Department of Neighborhoods provides some interesting history about the building on Amundson’s $3.8 million property:

Historic Name:      Del-Teet Furniture      Common Name:      Hollywood Video

Style:     Commercial     Neighborhood:     Capitol Hill

Built By:     Frederick Anhalt     Year Built:     1929

Significance

In the opinion of the survey, this property appears to meet the criteria of the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Ordinance.

This building was constructed in 1929 as the Del-Teet Furniture Store. Cyrus Teeter, who had a Denver store with a Dr. Delaney, identified this location as one of the busiest in Seattle and thus suitable for his second store. In the 1950s the store gained renown as the first to introduce modern furniture to go with new post-war housing styles. This was the first of several major furniture stores that opened on Broadway, earning it the name Furniture Row during the 1950s-60s. Del-Teet remained open at this location in to the 1990s. The building was designed by Frederick Anhalt, who was best known as a developer of French Norman and Tudor-inspired apartment buildings, particularly on Capitol Hill. His influence is evident in the arched windows on all three floors. Although Anhalt built several one-story neighborhood commercial buildings, this is his only building of this type–a three-story freestanding commercial structure.

Appearance

This three-story red brick building has a stepped parapet and arched windows on all three floors, including the street-level display windows. The storefront has a high degree of integrity, with wood-and-glass doors. The second floor projects over the first floor, supported by six square wood columns. Although the upper floor windows have a modern look, they are original. The building’s only ornament is brick sills and arches around the windows and simple decorative brick insets below the cornice line.

The overhaul is the latest in a series of investments in these blocks of Broadway across the street from the coming Capitol Hill Station transit-oriented development. In addition to the Harvard Ave project, the Del Teet re-use is joined by a new investor purchasing the land where the Broadway post office stands. As much as the supposed “dead zone” of Pike/Pine has changed in the last decade, it appears that this stretch of Broadway will see an even more rapid reinvention.