In what has sadly become a series from intersection of The Pandemic of Painted Plywood and The Pandemic of Absentee Landlords, I bring you the continuing saga of Pioneer Square’s historic Delmar Building.
For those that don’t know, the Delmar Building sits on the North-Eastern corner of 1st and Washington and has the distinction of being one of the first buildings built after the Great Seattle Fire. It was one of the earliest known pharmacies in the city and was last owned by the pharmacists daughter. As recently as three years ago, when it was purchased for $7.35MM, the building was 100% leased with retail and office tenants. Today it sits boarded and empty, prey to the ravages of nature’s abhorrence of vacuums.
It happened the last full week of February. Either at the owners request or done late at night by vigilantes, someone painted everything gray. Here are some pictures documenting its progression
Things went from looking like Escape From LA with Kurt Russel to 1984 with John Hurt but as anyone with any sense of place would expect, the solid gray did not last. The notorious graffiti group BTM saw this as an invitation to start a new mural.
Then, in a shocking twist, SATN’s tag gets blotted out. I’d like to think this was the act of someone protesting SATN’s attack on the lovely gray boards but I will never know for sure.
So here we stand. It’s a matter of time before someone elaborates on these new murals. There are no indications that the current owner wants to rent this space out and they are wise enough to know as long as that’s the case their best strategy remains leaving it boarded up and hope nobody notices how little they care about the neighborhood.