(Image: Dunn & Hobbes)
Displaced by a self storage facility, Seattle’s only newspaper has returned to its formative neighborhood. The Stranger says it is back on Capitol Hill and is inviting friends and neighbors to stop by Thursday’s Capitol Hill Art Walk to say hello:
On Thursday, April 9, come on down to The Stranger’s office for our very first Capitol Hill Art Walk event. Climb up to the third floor to see the best original photography that appeared in The Stranger last year. Plus, video installations from our two most recent issues, and you’ll have a chance to see Brandon Bye’s More Paint exhibit (a rare second chance if you missed it at Vermillion earlier this year).
Talk about dirty laundry, according to the updates, the media and events company has made its new Capitol Hill home in the historic Baker Linen building along 11th Ave nestled against the Chophouse Row Development.
Built 115 years ago as a showroom and garage for the neighborhood’s booming auto row, the building was home to the provider of linens to the city’s hospitality and medical industries for decades before eventually falling into the loving embrace of Capitol Hill developer Dunn & Hobbes and Liz Dunn who rehabilitated it and later developed neighboring Chophouse Row to complete the block.
Dunn remains an influential presence in the neighborhood and at Seattle City Hall.
The Baker Linen building’s ground floor includes Retrofit Home and the Gemini Room. Its upstairs offices have been home to a variety of Capitol Hill ventures including the Derschang Group. Now the third floor is filled with journalists, editors, and content creators. Plans for a Weinstein A+U-designed two-story penthouse office addition to the three-story building remain on ice.
The company is no longer the biggest media venture in the neighborhood. Cascade Public Media moved onto Broadway in 2024 though its financial struggles have muted the combined presence of KCTS 9 and Crosscut.
Meanwhile, The Stranger’s Capitol Hill homecoming arrives as its most recent SoDo offices are being displaced by a deal to convert the Maynard Ave S building into a self-storage facility.
The Stranger called Capitol Hill home until its pre-pandemic exit from the then-dilapidated offices above 11th and Pine. In 2024, the alternative weekly newspaper turned diversified media company was acquired by Seattle politician turned publisher Brady Walkinshaw and Rob Crocker, the one-time Portland Mercury publisher who eventually rose to lead the company after the Stranger launched its southern alt-weekly cousin in 2000.
Six years after its exit, The Stranger is now moved back in above 11th… and Pike.
The Capitol Hill Art Walk takes place every second Thursday at galleries, studios, shops, restaurants, and bars across the neighborhood. Learn more at capitolhillartwalk.com.
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