From the report prepared by David Peterson Historic Resource Consulting
It may be the unlikeliest of the remaining major auto row-era structures on Capitol Hill to be considered, but the boarded-up, 1924-built Olive Way Improvement Company building lined up for a likely future of mixed-use redevelopment will get its day in front of the Seattle Landmarks Board.
A required nomination hearing for the nearly 100-year-old complex at the curving corner of E Olive Way and Denny will take place next Wednesday. The meeting will likely be prelude to a demolition, or, at least, a gutting.
CHS broke the news in January that Guntower Capital, a holding company formed by executives at two Seattle-area real estate and development firms, was in agreement to purchase the half acre or so property once home to a mix of businesses including the former In the Bowl, the departed Bus Stop bar and Coffee Messiah cafe and a sprawling dog lounge charred in a 2017 fire.
Its history, of course, goes back much further but the commercial building constructed by an Olive Way focused developer as a retail and automotive garage structure has seen better days.
Still, it has its auto row charms including massive heavy timber trusses, old brick walls, and some remaining decorative flourishes along the E Olive Way facing retail segment “clad in buff-colored field face brick with terra cotta ornamentation.”
Landmark Nomination for the Following Property: 1550-1560 E Olive Way / 410-422 E Denny Way
The Landmarks Preservation Board will consider this nomination at its meeting on Wednesday, April 5, 2023, at 3:30 p.m.
You may access the meeting by the WebEx Event link or the telephone call-in line provided on the agenda. You may also attend the meeting in person in Room L2-80 of City Hall. Please be aware at this time that many of the Board members and presenters may be participating remotely rather than in person.Written public comments should be submitted no later than 3:30pm on April 4, 2023; the day before the meeting. However, we encourage everyone to submit written comment well in advance of the meeting to give the Board sufficient time to review them.
Via email: [email protected]
Via US Mail: Dept. of Neighborhoods, Landmarks Preservation Board, P.O. Box 94649, Seattle WA 98124-4649.Members of the public may sign up to address the Landmarks Preservation Board for up to 2 minutes on matters on this agenda.
Sign up online to speak during the Public Comment period at:
https://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/historic-preservation/city-landmarks/public-comment
“The subject building has undergone some alterations over time, and is poor condition due to deferred maintenance and recent vandalism,” the report prepared on behalf of Guntower Capital reads. “However, the commercial storefronts retain some degree of integrity.”
Formed in 2017, Guntower Capital includes Jonathan Slavin of Newmark Realty Capital, and Chris Langer and Joseph Razore of the Broderick Group, according to state filings. It is has recently been pursuing a 102-unit mixed-use development in downtown Bellevue and developing a 24-story, 237-unit apartment building in the University District. Other executives include Charlie Bauman, a principal former partner at barrientos RYAN, “a unique urban real estate development firm focused on making places” that has been active in Capitol Hill development.
E Olive Way, meanwhile, is lined up for a new wave of redevelopment. CHS reported here on the plans on the south side of E Olive Way replacing the former Coldwell Banker building and three others with a seven-story mixed-use project from Canada-based real estate investment and management company Low Tide Properties. CHS reported here on the plans for a new eight-story mixed use project being readied for the All Season Cleaners property just below Broadway. And a new eight-story, mass timber City Market building is also in the works. Meanwhile, the stretch is one of the few in the city where local, state, and federal restrictions allow retail marijuana permits and investment from the industry including The Reef building across the street has followed. The boarded up and fenced Starbucks property is also due for a restart.
The corner of E Olive Way and Denny will also see change but first there is some history to work through. The nomination process will clarify how developers can move forward.
In addition its rough case for architectural preservation, the history of the building’s tenants, its developer, nor connections to the architects that designed it will likely be persuasive arguments for landmarks protections for the Guntower property. The Olive Way Improvement Company managed to build only two other remaining projects — the Olive Crest Apartments and the Burlingame Hotel — while the architectural firm of Lawton & Moldenhour left behind several more impressive examples of its work including Capitol Hill’s Egyptian Theatre.
The building’s true legacy has been its utility — typically not a feature considered in the landmarks process. After it was constructed along E Olive Way as the street grew as an alternative connection between downtown and Capitol Hill, retail tenants in the 1930s through 1950s included a clothes cleaner, a salon, shoe repair shop, a florist, and a realtor’s office, according to the nomination report.
The storefronts represented a kind of continuity through the decades. “Over the years, the type of business in the storefront often remained the same, even after a change in name or ownership,” the report notes. “Some of these types of services remained tenants though the 1970s, even as the tenant mix began to change. Other shorter-term businesses included a tailor/reweaver, a beverage store, and an appliance repair service. As early as the 1940s, some businesses were occupying the small commercial spaces at the basement level under the garage along E Denny Way.”
The mix shifted in the 1960s and 1970s when “small professional firms began to occupy the E Olive Way storefronts as office space” including a public relations firm, a mechanical engineer, an industrial designer, and a graphic design and printing shop.” The 1980s and 1990s, brought more change with “larger, national chains offering neighborhood services, rather than small local shops” including a Supercuts hair salon, Subway sandwich shop, and H & R Block tax service. Meanwhile, a Moroccan restaurant and a bakery/catering company also moved in. Meanwhile, the lower garage space truly was dedicated to auto repair or auto body firms until the 1980s, when it was used as catering or restaurant-related space, and then in the 2000s when it became a dog day care facility.
The building, meanwhile, has also become a magnet for graffiti, murals, and tagging. It has also been the subject of complaints to the city over squatters since its last commercial tenants moved out during the pandemic.
An interesting stroll down E Olive Way’s commercial memory lane? For sure. But a new Capitol Hill landmark? Probably not.
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Oh god, please don’t be an idiot about this – and remove this incredibly bad eyesore of a building; and add some more housing, density – and actually and hopefully – some more parking to the area.
Agreed. I’m all for preserving historical buildings, but this one is not it. This is prime real estate for a taller building that could combine retail storefronts with housing above.
This building is cool and I like the old-ness of it. Build the apartments on top and keep the facade.
LOL! You really can’t help yourself can you?
They would not easily be able to keep the facade on this one. The dry cleaner that used to be in the basement poisoned the ground. Plus the leaking fuel tank from the auto row dealer and leaking oil drums and floor drains in the auto repair area. The developer is going to need to go down probably a minimum of four stories just to start. Maybe even have to tunnel under the road a bit to get dry cleaning contamination. A multi used if 4 to 10 stories with 3 to 4 levels of underground parking is about all you can build to deal with pollution and develop profitable at the same time. The remediation alone may run $2 to $4million.
I would just like to see them save some of the original architectural decorations that wrapped the doorways, the gargoyles on the buildings and pillers. As well as when they take it down to remove and save some of the large timbers in the building for future construction. There are 12 solid wood beams in the building that are 3ftx 5ftx 25ft we no longer have trees in the US to get wood like this for construction that involves exposed classical wood accent support. If the developer would just work with 2nd Use Building Supply they will take all that out and do a great deal of the demolition at no cost to the developer in exchange for the architectural parts, wood beams, electrical light fixtures, the bar, tables and benches in Bus Stop, the antique furniture in the back of the old tattoo shop and such.
I hope they can remove the terra cotta and incorporate it into the new building. There is some great detail there that will never be replicated in new construction. This doesn’t mean hold u[ new housing if it isn’t feasible.
I hope so too. Great idea!
They will not reuse it as it doesn’t fit Seattle’s current barcode architecture style. They could however have 2nd Use come out to remove it and old timbers performing the first 1/4 of deconstruction and endurance saving nice fixtures and old growth giant timbers to sale for new projects.
Some old crap isn’t worth preserving. The sooner this decaying structure and the blight around it go away, the better. One could build something good here, for people to live and one-off retail to thrive.
As ‘nice’ as this old building used to be, it has been a dilapidated eye sore for much much too long. I hope they can make a very quick decision on this and move along the process quickly. With the neighboring Starbucks gone and Glos gone the whole area needs a boost.
The Gloes building is in the works to be purchased by Stumbling Monk and Captain Black’s to save themselves and get some other business in Gloes spot.
Tear this dump down. I prefer to save older buildings but this has turned into such an eyesore. While I don’t want a giant building towering over the corner I’d prefer something that would bring more to the area.
Thank you for the coverage of its history & the photos! Lovely write up as always
Lots of good times at the old Bus Stop bar and my first-ever Seattle haircut at Supercuts!
Neglecting almost any building and boarding up windows, along with allowing squaters will tend to hide its charms. I don’t have a definite opinion on this one except to say that it would be great if the facade with “clad in buff-colored field face brick with terra cotta ornamentation” could be incoporated into whatever new construction comes.. Seattle is becoming a generic city with no sense of place or character. At least some of the Pike/Pine are has some left and continuing to ensure that more is not lost would be a worthwhile effort.
This should definitely be a facade preservation project. It has unique and exceptional detailing at the streetscape that should be incorporated into the new building along with small retail spaces that step with the sidewalk grade. It is a shame that the previous owner let it rot, probably to avoid a landmark designation. The rapid declines of this block, once a center of culture for the neighborhood, was shocking.
The previous owner I was last aware of was a Vietnamese national. Not a US Citizen. I doubt he ever even saw photos of the building. He purchased it around 2004 and held it for this sale or one like it to cash out. Cha—-Ching Baby!!! Guarantee he made at least $2M on that if not more.
They definitely have not been allowing squatters. The developer ever since they learned of the issue the first time had kept and rye on it and no squatter has made it longer than 24 hours since.
This building doesn’t look much different than all of the facades that were kept along pike/pine for redevelopment. I say keep the façade along olive way and build whatever cheap ugly box they come up with above it. Otherwise we’ll get a lifeless glass industrial retail space that becomes a dentist office/bank AND an ugly box on top (which is the last thing the hill needs).
It’s not the cutest building, sure, but it is definitely better than whatever would replace it if demolished.
Please, developers, reuse the front brick facade/trim on the new building! It will not break your bank to do so and will let the street scape on that block be at least a little bit unique and historical. I don’t want to live in a neighborhood where every block is all the same modern materials/construction.
The article claims the last tenants moved out during the pandemic. Incorrect. When the building was purchased by the current developer in I believe July of 2022 is when Holly Smoke, The Vap Shop, The Vietnamese restaurant and Capitol Mail were given just 20 days notice to move out. The developer extorted between $20,000 to $75,000 from each tenant to give them just 30 more days. 37 days to move businesses that had been in place 10 to 15 years. When move out day came the developer did not come by to see how things were going? Did not ask what help they may need to finish? No. They paid a contractor to change all locks hired muscle to latterly push the tenants outside. Then boarded up the whole building intending to keep any and all inventory, commercial fixtures, personal items the tenants may have had inside. I heard rumor that the restaurant had to break in in the middle of the night to steal there own ovens, deep fryers, burners and refrigerators to be able to open someplace else. The Asian owner never had any legal representation and was mislead thinking the lease would be renewed so she did not have to pack up. The developer was disingenuous with businesses that were friends of the community. A couple were behind on rents with the old landlord but seriously giving a business under 45 days to move is a death sentence.
Forgot one of this building’s most memorable uses: as a protest tourist squat during WTO. Coffee Messiah provided them with power. Up to 50 out of towners showed up that week to live in the empty garage that had been a restaurant, and plan the revolution. Flyers went up as well: “Bomb Throwers Local 666 Eugene.”
Source: I lived in Faneuil Hall next door at the time.
Yes! Direct Action Network held trainings in that space in the weeks prior to the protest and throughout that week. Along with the Indy Media down on 3rd it was the strategic center of the action. In my memory there were at times hundreds of people packed in there with lots of amazing debate about tactics.