Last Thursday I was lucky enough to go on a tour of one of Seattle’s crown jewels,
The Rainier Cold Storage Building Campus in Georgetown.
Sabey Corporation
bought this collection of buildings for $10 million and is planning to develop the site into a mix of stores, industry, homes, and office space. The complex, consisting of a Freezer Building, Malt House, Brew House, Machine House, Stock House, and offices, was built starting in 1903, with additions built through the years. In 1904, the company was the 6th largest brewery in the country and the largest west of the Mississippi.
This collection of buildings is simply awe-inspiring (especially the Brew House, more on that later). The tour lasted more than 2 hours and my photo collection is so massive that I’m going to have to divide up the content over a few days. So, we’ll start today with the exterior shots. And I’d like to thank Jim Harmon of Sabey for putting the tour together. This important Seattle landmark photo collection is definitely
To Be Continued later this week.
*Update:
Part 2 of the image collection is now up — click
here to view. Click on the images for a larger view.
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Rainier Cold Storage & Ice ghost sign on the south face of the building campus. Even further south and out of frame is the general office building. Notice the bricked in-filled windows — the matching brick suggests the brick was laid in the windows at the time the building was built. The water table under this building is still half frozen and isn’t expected to thaw for some years. The freezing and thawing has wrought havoc on the structural integrity of this building. Cracks are evident throughout. Click here for an image of this same view from 1907.
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Old smoke stack next to the Machine House building. The area to the right used to be part of the facility as well, but was destroyed in fire and had to be torn down. The Machine House building has some of the most pleasing architecture of the complex.
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This bridge extends from the 3rd floor of the Machine House (not in frame) to the Brew House. As we’ll see in the shots later this week, the Brew House interior was absolutely stunning. There used to be another story on the top floor which was removed at an unknown time (click here for an image).
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Close-up shot of the Stock House foundation. The sandstone has been blasted away over the years by cars spraying water from the street. This has been compounded by the fact that the sidewalk is just 6 feet wide as opposed to the more conventional 10 feet. Pardon my shadow.
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Looking up at the Stock House facade with yet more windows at ground level that have been bricked over. The brick does not match here, suggesting that they were laid at a later date than construction.
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Wide angle shot of the whole complex (sans General Offices, again off frame to the right). This gives a scale to the complex, which is fairly massive. Just across the street are a collection of bars, restaurants, and shops. Traffic on Airport Way is quite heavy and I anticipate the noise being a real problem for this complex when developed. Click here for this same angle from 1908.
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Back (east) side of the freezer building. As mentioned, the freezing and thawing of the water table under this building has caused considerable structural problems. Note the masonry literally crumbling. Hard hats are worn in this area of the site, as bricks have been known to fall. The train tracks to the right of this shot are still in operation.
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Another angle of the back side of the freezer building. The pipes above the first floor used to carry ammonia and have to be taken apart with great care. The 2nd floor pictured above is where the large blocks of ice were frozen and processed.
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Back side of the Brew House. Just to the right and out of frame in this shot is the smoke stack. The area to the left of this shot is captured in the next photo.
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The area in the foreground of this image was originally part of the Stock House building but a massive fire in 1988 left it in ruins and most of it had to be torn down. As you can see, just the wall facade was left in tact, braced, and left standing. The wall of the Freezer Building to the left had to be supported with cinder blocks.
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Alternate view of the Brew House on left and Freezer Building on right. General Offices building can be seen in the far distance. The concrete part of the 1st level facade was built sometime in the 1930′s or 1940′s.
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This north-most building housed the brewing company’s offices and today serves as an artist work loft area. As you can see the original ground floor has been raised half a level. Click here for a shot of the interior of this building from 1914.
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[...] the Webmaster Link to Article west 8 Profile: Rainier Cold Storage Buildings Pt. 1 » Posted at VintageSeattle.org [...]
Very “cool!” So, are the buildings going to be adaptively reused as part of the development? That’s what I’m hoping for!
[...] be keeping an eye on how things shake out. Let’s get to the shots, but first check out the first set of exterior shots if you haven’t already. Click on the thumbnails for a larger [...]
Vicki:
Ya, adaptive reuse of the buildings is their plan. To what degree that happens, well, who knows. They are supposed to make an announcement on that sometime this week. Some of the areas were in such poor structural shape, I was a little skeptical about how much they’d be able to save, but we’ll see.
Cliffe
[...] application to demolish what remains of the Rainier Cold Storage Stock House. As I mentioned in my initial collection of photos from the complex, this building was used as a freezer facility from 1937 to 2002 and had frozen the water table 24 [...]
[...] only wall remaing of the Stock House up against the Brew House. Click here for the rest of my exterior Rainier Cold Storage [...]
Seattle is just so beautiful, so much character and definition in these old buildings.
I am surprised at the level of negativity I have seen thus far from this community regarding the sale of the Rainier Cold Storage building. I am not a corporate
slave, and I certainly don’t condone the ouster of artists from their workspaces in the interest of condo-building and what not. But, I do believe that a ten-million dollar investment in the future of our neighborhood is a good thing…on many levels.
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