South Park Yacht Club Apartments: 2020 Preserving Neighborhood Character Award

Congratulations to the South Park Yacht Club Apartments & owner Padraic Slattery!

The South Park Yacht Club building was originally built in 1954 as a 13-unit mid-century apartment building. Over time, it fell into disrepair and was completely dilapidated, becoming a blight for the neighborhood.

Where many may have seen a prime candidate for a teardown, Padraic Slattery – a preservationist and mid-century modern revivalist – saw a building in need of some TLC. Over the years, Padraic has thoughtfully restored and revitalized several mid-century modern residential, commercial and dwellings throughout the Seattle area. Approaching his projects as a designer first and real estate developer second allows Padraic to create transformation.

Such is the case with the South Park Yacht Club. Slattery’s reimagining of the building defied the industry’s conventional wisdom as it pertains to both design and economics – more artistic crusade than traditional real estate investment. The building’s design was prioritized over the return on investment, elevating the project to a new standard and producing aboutique hotel-like feel for the apartments. The marina theme pays homage to the adjacent South Park Marina on the Duwamish River.

The project included restoring the brick façade, exposing the rustic wood ceilings, refinishing the concrete floors, and adding solar window shades, sound-absorbing insulation, smooth finish drywall, custom cabinetry, new appliances, wood or quartz slab kitchen countertops, full penny round tiled kitchen backsplash and shower walls, custom bathrooms with rain showers, frameless glass shower panels, brass lighting and hardware, and fully-fenced outdoor patios.

In lieu of being able to speak to you directly at this year’s Preservation Celebration Benefit – canceled due to COVID-19 – Padraic said, “To be recognized by Historic Seattle amid a deep and talented pool of past, present and future preservationist award recipients represents nothing short of a profound honor for me. The Yacht Club underwent a remarkable transformation and the project was treated more like an obligation to both the neighborhood and the structure itself rather than a real estate focused renovation project.”

He continued, “The building was in tear-down condition and resembled a housing complex that was no longer fit for human habitat. In my approach, I believe that as historic preservationists, we have an underlying debt not only to the buildings we preserve and the future occupants but also to the former tenants and the impact we have on the surrounding communities we invest in. From a design perspective, I make it a point to get funky because you can’t stand out if you fit in. I want people to see my soul in my work. When I started out on this journey, I made it a mission to dispose of outdated industry culture and standards. I prioritized design and that mindset often clouds economic reality but ultimately, I’m so much more satisfied with the end user product because of it. Nothing worthwhile comes easy, cheap, or fast and historic preservation done properly is no exception.”

“In closing, I would like to personally thank everyone who has inspired me, I collaborated with, and the people that provided me with the opportunity to be in the unique position to rehab historic buildings. It’s my aspiration to one day inspire a future design-oriented developer in the same way others have inspired me to follow in their footsteps,” Padraic concluded.

And we’d like to thank you, Padraic, for your vision and hard work to restore the South Park Yacht Club. Congratulations for earning this year’s Preserving Neighborhood Character Award!

Dan Say: 2020 Preservation Champion Award

Congratulations to Dan Say!

Anyone who meets Dan Say immediately sees that he is a passionate person. Dan brings passion and sensitivity to the structural design for every individual project. This means if a traditional structural approach is best for the project, great. But if an unusual, edge-of-the-box approach will better serve the design intent and maintain historic integrity, then that’s what you’ll get.

With 39 years of structural design for historic buildings under his belt, Dan has amassed an expansive resume. He and his team have touched a number of iconic places including the Pike Place Market redevelopment, King Street Station, more than a dozen buildings in the historic Pioneer Square neighborhood, six Carnegie Library renovations for Seattle Public Library, the Washington State Legislative building both pre- and
post-Nisqually Earthquake, the original Rainier Brewery, the Cherberg Building in Olympia, and multiple county courthouses throughout the state.

Dan is a native and second-generation Seattleite – his grandfather was an immigrant tile setter who worked on the original King Street Station lobby in 1906. He grew up on Beacon Hill in the shadow of the historic Pacific Tower (then called the Pacific Medical Center), attended O’Dea High School, and completed his education at Seattle University. His passion for local history combined with his love of people led him straight to a historic preservation career path. When Dan looks at a historic building, he not only sees the building’s bones but also the people that occupied that building and its relation to its neighborhood. He understands that the goal is not just to save the building, but to preserve the neighborhood’s history for future generations.

Building restoration is a key element in preserving a community’s history. Dan’s ability to provide practical design solutions with minimal intervention and his people skills are a winning combination for a successful renovation endeavor. Whether it’sproviding preliminary historic structure evaluations, or inserting seven stories of braced frames to the FX McRory’s project while removing only minimal portions of the
existing structure, or tracking down the original 1941 Yesler Terrace Steam Plant chimney stack drawings from the Chicago cons

truction company critical to the analysis that preserved the stack (resulting in $800,000 savings for Seattle Housing Authority), Dan and his team’s thoughtful approach for every project results in preserving the historic fabric for Seattle’s neighborhood gems.

In addition to being a founding principal with Swenson Say Fagét (SSF) for the past 25years, Dan’s community commitments include six years on the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation Board of Directors ( he is currently still a non-board member volunteer), four years on the AIA Seattle
Board of Directors, and two years on the Design-in-Public Board of Directors.

Nicholas Vann, AIA, Washington State’s Historical Architect with the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, speaks to Dan’s unrivaled approach to preservation state-wide:

“Dan Say truly sets the gold standard when it comes to sensitive, practical, innovative approaches to structural challenges in historic buildings. His diligence and attention to detail are unrivaled as evidenced by his outstanding accomplishments in Seattle and Washington State. He possesses characteristics that breed success in every project he touches, and he inspires others to approach historic rehabilitation projects with the same care and sensitivity as he does.”

So, raise a glass to Dan (an Italian red, he’d likely suggest) and all his accomplishments on behalf of historic places!

Pictured top to bottom, from Dan’s extensive portfolio: Pike Place Market, Metropole Building (Pioneer Square), aerial view of FX McRory’s (Pioneer Square); Fran’s Chocolates (the original Rainier Brewery and Claussen-Sweeney Brewing Company building, known collectively as Seattle Brewing and Malting Co, in Georgetown); the Green Lake and Columbia City Carnegie libraries

Lincoln High School: 2020 Beth Chave Best Rehabilitation Award

Congratulations to the Lincoln High School Project Team!

Owner: Seattle Public Schools
Architect: Bassetti Architects

Construction Manager: CBRE/Heery; Contractor: Lydig Construction; Structural Engineer: Coughlin Porter Lundeen; Mechanical Engineer: Metrix Engineers; Electrical Engineer: Hargis Engineers; Cost Control: RLB | Robinson; Landscape Architect: Cascade Design Collaborative; Civil Engineer: LPD Engineering; Acoustical Engineer: Stantec; Hardware Consultant: Adams Consulting; Food Service Consultant: JLR Design Group

About the Project:

Lincoln High School, a Seattle Landmark and the city’s oldest high school, first opened in 1907 to accommodate the rapid growth in North Seattle that came with the streetcar extension to Wallingford and relocation of the University of Washington campus. 113 years later, another wave of growth called the historic school back into action.

The building has been altered several times over the years. A north wing designed by Edgar Blair, the second school district architect, was added in 1914 and contained an auditorium and two small gymnasiums. A south wing designed by Floyd Naramore, the third district architect, was added in 1930 for art, music, classrooms, and a study hall.

The final major alteration of the 20th century, an International Style addition designed by NBBJ in 1958, accommodated physical education and performing arts programs but was a significant departure from the building’s historic context.

After a decline in enrollment in the 1970s, Lincoln High School closed in 1981 and was leased out for community use until 1997, when it began to be used as an interim site for schools under construction. The multiple users, haphazard remodels, and deferred maintenance left the building in very poor condition.

Like the 1914 and 1930 additions, the goal of the 2020 rehabilitation was to support modern educational needs while celebrating the rich contextual heritage of the landmark building.

The restoration of Lincoln’s exterior included tuckpointing, cleaning, and waterproofing of the brick cladding, along with terra cotta and sandstone repair and replacement.

New additions were sited to minimize impacts to primary facades while rotting and rusting fenestration was replaced with new, historically referential windows. The historic landscape, crowned by 100-year-old beech trees, was also preserved and revitalized. Interior renovation included complete system upgrades (seismic, life safety, mechanical, electrical) along with adaptive re-use of the building layout to support six learning communities surrounding a centralized student commons. Surviving historic interior elements (stairways, drinking fountain, alumni room, artwork) were also preserved.

The result is a school – which reopened to students in Fall 2019 – that provides outstanding learning settings while instilling pride in the preservation of a community landmark. The Beth Chave Best Rehabilitation Award honors Seattle Public Schools and the project team for their preservation efforts, made possible by community support from school levies and the neighborhood for embracing the renovation of its historic legacy.

ABOUT THE BETH CHAVE HISTORIC PRESERVATION AWARD
Historic Seattle established the Beth Chave Historic Preservation Award in 2013 to honor our friend and colleague who served as the Landmarks Preservation Board Coordinator for the City of Seattle for 25 years. The award recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of historic preservation. Beth Chave (1955-2012) left an indelible mark on the city’s historic built environment. Her work with professional colleagues, landmark and historic district property owners, and neighborhood advocates throughout Seattle has left a legacy of honoring and protecting historic places in our communities.

The Louisa Hotel: 2020 Community Investment Award

Congratulations to the Louisa Hotel Project Team!

Owners: Yuen G Woo LLC (Woo family), Gaard Development
Partners: Chase Community Equity; First Federal; Barrientos Ryan; Rolluda Architects; DCI Engineering; Marpac Construction; Chinn Construction; Gemma Daggatt Interior Design; Northwest Vernacular

About the project:

The Louisa Hotel, a contributing building to the Seattle Chinatown National Register Historic District and the International Special Review District, was built in 1909 as a single occupancy (SRO) hotel with ground floor retail. Designed by Andrew Willatsen and Barry Byrne, disciples of Frank Lloyd Wright who worked in his Chicago studio at the turn of the century, the hotel first housed Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants while they waited for work in Alaskan canneries.

The building was once home to a casino, a jazz club, and Seattle’s first Chinese bakery – but this history was threatened by both the passing of time and by disaster.

The Louisa Hotel’s top floors were vacant for over 50 years. It had been too expensive to bring them up to code, as is the case with many buildings in the Chinatown-International District. On Christmas Eve in 2013, a fire broke out which burned the roof and compromised the western half of the building. With the mortar in the brick damaged

by the fire, the unreinforced masonry wall along Maynard Alley was in danger of collapse and became a threat to public safety. Furthermore, some of the building’s interior had collapsed onto itself.

The restoration project began by stabilizing, demolishing, rebuilding, and replicating the fire-damaged western side of the building. Just stabilizing the building took two years. The team then worked to preserve the Louisa Hotel’s façade and extensively renovate the eastern half of the building.

The restoration complied with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. The team preserved the feel of the hallways by removing, refinishing, and reinstalling the historic doors, which still carry the shadow of their original unit numbers. The team paid close attention to detail when restoring the building’s character-defining features, such as the original wood trim, picture rails, leaded glass windows, and bay windows.

Notably, Prohibition era murals from the jazz club (shown here) were also discovered and restored. Furniture and other artifacts salvaged from the Louisa Hotel before demolition have been returned and put on display.

But the building is more than just brick and mortar. True to its origin as affordable workforce housing, the Louisa Hotel reopened with 84 units of affordable workforce housing for individuals and families earning between $35,000 and $80,000 per year. In June of 2019, the building opened its doors to new residents for the first time in over 50 years – and not a moment too soon.

We are proud to recognize the Woo family and Gaard Development with the Community Investment Award for their restoration of the Chinatown-International District’s historic Louisa Hotel.