Or, maybe we’ll only get another emptied block waiting for construction.
Employees at Broadway’s Mud Bay pet supply store are telling customers the shop’s final day of business will come in July. That closure could be one key piece to fall in a process to finally redevelop 229 Broadway E block.
Last year, developers asked the city to extend the timeline for permits to demolish the 1903-era Wilshire Building, the onetime home of Jai Thai and a mix of local businesses and upstairs residents, once the Broadway Rexall, and, according to the city’s 2022 board, most assuredly not a Seattle landmark.
The property has long been lined up for a low-income housing development boosted by $3 million in affordable housing funding from the 2021 round of Office of Housing grants. Developers purchased the property for $6.25 million in 2018, according to King County records.
Under emergency rules passed in spring of 2020 to help keep design and landmark reviews on track during the pandemic restrictions, the affordable housing development qualified for a fast track path to construction and did not need to pass through public design review.
That plan for a seven-story, mixed-use building designed by Seattle’s Knit Studios with 95 apartments, five ground floor live/work units, and new street-level retail space is still kicking around. Over 2023 and 2024, records indicate work to respond to corrections requested by the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections kept the plans warm even as the industry cooled in Seattle’s challenging mix of high interest rates, inflation and construction costs, and flagging rents emerging from the pandemic.
Mud Bay’s exit could open the way for that demolition permit to finally be executed. In their paperwork last August, developers said the planned demolition had commenced “due to delays in existing commercial tenant lease negotiations and vacating of property.” The only other business left operating in the building according to records is a small personal training gym.
It would be the second major demolition finally moving forward around Capitol Hill. CHS reported earlier this month on permits and paperwork moving back into motion for a long-planned development set to replace a cluster of mostly empty office and commercial buildings on E Olive Way. That project hung around planning stages long enough that developers were able to add another story to the building’s design thanks to changes in Seattle zoning.
For anybody incredulous about the project’s hopes of finally digging in on Capitol Hill’s historic main drag, we offer a competition. What will happen first? Demolition of the old Jai Thai building — or a McDonald’s on Broadway?
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