REAL ESTATE: West Seattle Junction’s city-landmark Campbell Building up for sale

(Undated photo from landmark-nomination document)

Five years after local preservation advocates got two buildings in the heart of the West Seattle Junction designated as city landmarks, one of them is up for sale – the Campbell Building on the northeast corner of California/Alaska. A check of commercial real-estate listings shows the century-old brick-clad building went on the market Thursday for an asking price of $6 million. It’s a mixed-use building, with apartments and offices over business spaces, including the three currently occupied by Cupcake Royale, City Mouse, and Shanghai Hair Studio. Landmark designation does not necessarily guarantee preservation of a building; the listing for this one notes, “NC3P-95 Zoning allows a significant development opportunity for one of the most important corners in the Junction.” By vote of the city Landmarks Board in April 2017, the exterior of the building was declared a landmark, but not the interior; elsewhere in the city – Capitol Hill, for example – redevelopment projects have preserved historic facades at the bottom of new buildings. As reported in our 2017 coverage of the Campbell Building designation, the building’s been owned by the same family for almost 80 years, and they did not object to the designation. (Here’s the city document on the building’s landmark status.)

Derek March 11, 2022 (6:13 pm)

My my please don’t let this one get razed!! Needs more all night coffee/diner/bar spaces.

Jort March 11, 2022 (9:30 pm)

I will once again note that, if this building becomes slated for a 6/7-story development, it will be because the citizens of this city for several decades have ensured that the only place that housing growth can occur is within these very tiny “urban villages.” When you concentrate all growth into these locations, the land becomes extremely valuable, and is worth far, far more than what a small, locally-owned business can pay to sustain. If you don’t like seeing small businesses displaced like this, then you need to start allowing different kinds of housing, like duplexes and townhomes, in other places in the city, including the very block that your single family home is on. The citizens and government officials of this city made deliberate policy choices that lead to the concentration of multi-level housing in these small areas. If it really bugs you, that’s fine, but you have to understand that the growth in housing must happen somewhere and you can either distribute it through the 80 percent of city land zoned as single family, or you can concentrate it in the tiny sliver of the immediate vicinity of the most historic business districts in the city. Pick one.

HS March 12, 2022 (8:50 am)

Phew! So many changes in the hood. Looking forward to what’s coming.

Michael Ostrogorsky March 12, 2022 (11:19 am)

The original photograph is dated 1925 courtesy Museum of History and Industry (Item No. 1983.10.12198.1).

WSB March 12, 2022 (12:41 pm)

Thank you.

Jill Loblaw March 12, 2022 (8:08 pm)

Bit by bit, old West Seattle is being destroyed by yet more hungry developers who could give a crap about any small town atmosphere this area once had. Carpet baggers.

Auntie March 12, 2022 (8:43 pm)

At least the facade is landmarked, so they will have to leave the brickwork intact. Look at what they did with the Seattle Labor Temple down in Belltown. They had to leave the facade, but completely renovated the inside. Better than tearing it down for nondescript townhomes!http://www.labourtemple.com/
Pessoa March 12, 2022 (9:10 pm)

Though I suspect the idea of pies cooling on a windowsill and folks sipping mint juleps on the front porch with a “howdy” for passing neighbors, a sort of Mayberry, might be a wee bit of romanticized nostalgia. Especially in Seattle.
My two cents March 13, 2022 (4:51 pm)

@jill – the term “carpetbagger” is not applicable and strikes me as a way to inflame opinions.

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