The Great Seattle Boom: $2 Million in Brick and Mortar
Architects and owners promise a wave of substantial construction that will transform Second Street into the city's new business heart, leaving Front Street behind.
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.
It is settled that a large addition to the business houses of Seattle will be made during the coming building season. Structures of wooden design suitable for light dwellings there will be many, and within the limits where no wooden building is permitted, there will be many fine new structures.
Lists of buildings certain to be erected, probable and possible are given on another page. The first-class, that is, those that are certain, includes fifteen buildings, whose total cost is estimated at $1,000,000. Those who have had occasion to note the discrepancy between the estimated and actual cost of construction will readily understand that this increases upwards of $1,000,000.
The list of 'probable' includes sixteen buildings to cost over $750,000, while there are many 'possible,' including some which we are not at liberty to designate. In the light of assurances given us by architects and owners, we expect to see $2,000,000 worth of substantial brick constructions under roof by the 1st day of next January. Of lighter buildings, dwellings and the like, there will be at least 2,000, one-fourth of that number being already under construction.
It will be interesting to note the changes in business brought about by the building up of new streets. It is quite certain that Second street will become a very important business thoroughfare. The Burke building, with others already there, will make it distinctly a business street, and if all the buildings proposed actually go up, it is likely to rise above Front street, if, indeed, it does not surpass it.
If the owners of property would unite in some common plan for the purification and rehabilitation of that part of town, they could add at a low estimate fifty per cent. to values. Every building of good style and character helps in the make-up of reform.
This 1889 article captures the fever pitch of Seattle’s post-fire rebuilding era, where the city center shifted from the waterfront (Front Street) to the inland commercial corridor (Second Avenue). The prediction that Second Street would surpass Front Street proved accurate, laying the groundwork for the modern downtown core. Today, as Seattle grapples with its own housing affordability crisis and rapid densification, this historical pivot reminds us that urban geography is never static; it is constantly rewritten by capital and construction.
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