50 years of civil rights and economic empowerment: The Central District’s McKinney Center to be considered as Seattle landmark

(Image: Seattle Department of Neighborhoods)

A center of economic empowerment, civil rights, and modern architecture in the Central District is up for landmark consideration.

The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods’ Landmarks Preservation Board will convene on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, at 3:30 PM to evaluate the landmark nomination of the McKinney Center for Community and Economic Development, located at 2120 S Jackson.

According to the landmark nomination packet, the 111,000-square-foot facility “has been a center for learning and development in the Central Area for over 50 years,” providing thousands of Seattleites with vocational training and “giving them the tools to seek gainful employment and advance in their careers,” while remaining “especially impactful to Seattle’s African American population”.

Originally constructed in 1974 to house the Seattle Opportunities Industrialization Center, the site is currently owned by the Central District Community Preservation and Development Authority. The organization acquired the property from Seattle Central College in 2021 to preserve its community development legacy.

The nomination highlights deep social and historic ties between the facility and the Central Area, historically home to the largest Black population in Seattle. Starting around 1900, the neighborhood developed into a center for the Black community, becoming a sanctuary as widespread racial covenants and financial redlining restricted Black residents from purchasing property in other parts of the city. By 1960, over 62% of Seattle’s Black population resided in the Central District.

During the 1960s civil rights movement and President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, civil rights leader and Mount Zion Baptist Church pastor Rev. Dr. Samuel B. McKinney co-founded the local SOIC chapter alongside national activist Rev. Leon Sullivan. Operating under a philosophy of self-help and economic self-determination, the program offered specialized training in fields like welding, automotive repair, drafting, keypunching, and carpentry to help minority and low-income residents secure quality employment amidst a shifting aerospace economy. The building was later renamed in honor of Rev. Dr. McKinney after the CDCPDA acquired the site.

At its creation, the center was a focus in the state’s response as construction and building trade unions came under federal scrutiny for racially discriminatory hiring and apprenticeship practices. When the Washington State Labor Council endorsed an apprenticeship outreach program operated by the SOIC to integrate minority workers into skilled trades, local union bodies such as the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council resisted and favored alternative programs, leading to institutional friction between community-based job trainers and union leadership.

The center also survived a chapter that could be a lesson under the current federal administration, facing major turmoil in 1986 when drastic federal budget cuts under the Reagan administration abruptly shuttered SOIC’s federal grants. The sudden closure sparked widespread public outcry and protests, famously leading dedicated instructors and students to hold outdoor classes directly on the locked steps of the Jackson Street building to protest the shutdown before the state eventually stepped in to preserve the educational site.

Architecturally, the structure stands as a notable example of Late Modernism. The original four-story building was designed by Hungarian-born architect Gabor Lorant, a former Freedom Fighter in the Hungarian Revolution who established a prominent practice in Phoenix. Lorant designed a late-modern industrial lab and classroom facility marked by a compact trapezoidal plan, smooth curvilinear forms, and horizontal ribbon glazing that echoed the aerodynamic aesthetics of Seattle’s booming aviation industry. Two additional floors were added in 1981 following Lorant’s original design intent.

In 1996, the building underwent a significant renovation led by prominent local firms Johnson Architecture and Planning alongside DKA Architecture, headed by prominent Black architect Donald King. This project shifted the primary entry to the southwest corner, created a multi-story glass atrium with an open staircase, and introduced distinctive green horizontal metal siding with silver grid accents.

Today operating as a multipurpose community asset under the Central District Community Preservation and Development Authority, the McKinney Center serves as a small business incubator, workforce training hub, and nonprofit office space, hosting organizations such as Fresh Start, Arms Around You, The IF Project, Black Legacy Homeowners, and the Central Area Documentary Project Association.

It has been joined by modern efforts to grow and diversity opportunities in the Central District including Africatown’s creation of the William Grose Center for Cultural Innovation and Enterprise in a former fire station along 23rd Ave.

For a community-owned asset in a rapidly changing area like the Central District, landmark status for the McKinney Center could act as a permanent safeguard, ensuring the building remains dedicated to economic mobility, civil rights heritage, and empowerment.

If it moves forward, the nomination will join a second Central District landmarks process to make progress this summer. CHS reported here on the designation of The People’s Wall as an official Seattle landmark in June.

Nomination materials can be reviewed on the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods website ahead of the August hearing.

The McKinney Center for Community and Economic Development is located at 2120 S Jackson.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE

Subscribe to CHS to help hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month — or choose your level of support