(Image: Hunters Capital)
Five years after it welcomed the international beauty brand’s post-pandemic revival of its global retail ambitions, the Pike/Pine business community is preparing for the exit of Glossier from 10th Ave.
Neighborhood developer and property management firm Hunters Capital has begun listing (PDF) the 6,200-square-foot boutique space currently home to the Seattle Glossier for lease.
“Embrace the rich charm of this eclectic Seattle corridor in a chic, historic single-story retail building, formerly occupied by Glossier,” the new listing reads. “The glass-lined storefront pops against the classic, white-brick facade, complemented by a blush-toned trim, while the heavy timber construction emulates Capitol Hill’s historic Auto Row past.”
Glossier hasn’t announced a final day of business for the store but the exit will be part of an overhauled strategy for the SoHo-based company that will see it shut down its nine shops across the country while its flagships in New York, London, and Los Angeles soldier on with hopes of restoring the brand “to its Millennial glory days.”
CHS reported here on the summer 2021 opening of Glossier on Capitol Hill as part of its revival of global brick and mortar retail ambitions following a pandemic-forced hibernation with Seattle joining plans for new stores in Los Angeles, London, and New York City. “Glossier in 3D,” the company said at the time.
The new 10th Ave showroom filled the Pike/Pine space neighboring Havana and Poquitos left empty in the summer of 2019 when the Gary Manuel Aveda Institute moved two blocks west.
It also represented one of the new directions for shopping in the neighborhood across the street from Pike/Pine’s largest, most famous retailer, Elliott Bay Book Company. CHS has reported on multiple big name brands in the years since that have chosen Pike/Pine over safer bets like the University Village mall and experimented with the Capitol Hill retail market before flaming out. Others have stuck.
The Pike/Pine store expanded on what Glossier created on Capitol Hill in 2019 as the company got a taste for the Seattle market with a much-hyped pop-up store on Broadway that drew long lines to the shop filled with Millennial pink, live plants and rolling turf hills.
COVID-19 put a major kink in the plans and Glossier’s hopes for a Capitol Hill store were put on ice until being thawed out and deployed in Pike/Pine a few years later.
“Moss-covered rocks pierce through the store’s foundation and gigantic, Willy Wonka-esque mushrooms sprout through the sleek, minimal architecture,” senior design lead Kendall Latham said about the look from landscape designer Lily Kwong. “There are communal areas throughout, including a giant tiered seating area that mimics natural topographies, all of which are juxtaposed against futuristic details like a hologram butterfly mirror.”
As the moss and the fake mushrooms are removed, the space might also be split. Hunters Capital is suggesting new tenants might consider sharing the Glossier space as two 3,200-square-foot suites. You can have one or both for $47 a square foot per year — plus triple net taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
Several independent retailers, meanwhile, continue to call Pike/Pine home. Maybe whatever is next to make a go of it on 10th Ave will stick in the mix.
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