A Massive Seven-Story Building Planned for First and Seneca
In a $90,000 real estate deal, a new landmark will soon rise on the downtown waterfront, featuring three stories of warehouse space below the street level.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A sale of real estate was closed yesterday involving the sum of $90,000, which is to be promptly followed by the erection of a seven-story building on the property in question. The sale is that of lots 7 and 8 in A.A. Denny's addition, on the northwest corner of First and Seneca streets, with riparian rights to deep water in the harbor, by Capt. Charles Hopkins to John Parkinson. Mr. Parkinson intends to begin within a month the erection of a seven-story building of pressed brick and stone, extending west to Post street. The ground falling off very rapidly at that point, there will be three stories below the level of First street, which will be arranged for wholesale stores. There will be four stories above the line of First street, of which the lowest will be divided into three stores and the upper ones constructed for apartments or hotel purposes. It will be of slow-burning material, having heavy timbers and two or three thicknesses of three-inch flooring with asbestos paper between them.
“The ground falling off very rapidly at that point, there will be three stories below the level of First street.”
This sale highlights the rapid vertical development of Seattle’s downtown core following the Great Fire of 1889. The 'rapid fall' of the land toward the water is a reminder of the dramatic topography that would eventually be reshaped by the city's massive regrade projects.
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