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Buyer plans two new buildings to join ‘adaptive reuse’ overhaul of Knights of Columbus property

(Image: City of Seattle)

The future of Harvard Ave’s 106-year-old Knights of Columbus building is a massive adaptive reuse project sandwiched by two new apartment buildings, according to early planning by the property’s new owner, SRM Development.

The Spokane-based developer of multifamily and commercial properties struck a deal for the building and its two surface parking lots with Grand Knight Tom Joyce that will net the Knights of Columbus, Seattle Council 676 some $18.55 million, according to King County records.

Representatives for the council declined to comment on the sale but CHS reported in May as we broke news of the building’s planned sale that the Seattle group planned “to contribute substantially all of the property sale proceeds and any other Club assets to a new and separate 501(c)(3) charitable organization” intended to “manage the contributed funds and the earnings to use them to financially assist other charitable or religious organizations which pursue worthy causes.”

With designs from Runberg Architecture Group, SRM’s early plans for the property on the rise of Harvard between First Hill and Pike/Pine include an overhaul of the 33,708 square-foot Knights hall, and two new multifamily buildings on the sites today dedicated to surface parking lots on Harvard and on Union. Current zoning would allow 65-foot structures.

“We don’t know yet what exactly we will do with the property,” James Rivard, managing principal at SRM, told this development industry news site about the project. “The building will be retained and rehabilitated into a residential or commercial use; we’re just now engaging in further studies of what we think the highest and best use is for the building and the neighborhood.”

The decision to rehabilitate the old club hall will likely mean significant seismic work to brace the old masonry walls of the three-story structure. Like the old Harvard Exit project, SRM’s Knights hall development won’t attempt to add housing or office space above the old structure. The Harvard Exit project is finally coming to fruition this summer as the Consulate of Mexico in Seattle is set to mark its official start of operations in its new Capitol Hill home.

 

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RWK
RWK
5 years ago

This is great news! I’m really glad that a beautiful old building is going to not be demolished (for a change), and instead rehabilitated and re-used. And the other planned development on the site will please those who want every square inch of Seattle developed into housing.