By any standard, the Old Seattle Parking Garage is unexceptional. The squat greenish-gray building at 316 Alaskan Way has little to offer visually and even less historical significance.
“Although the building has served as a garage since 1919,” reads a Seattle Department of Neighborhoods summary of its history, “in general it does not appear to be associated with specific historic events or significant people.”
A long time ago, the garage probably wore the same warm-hued brick of so many other Pioneer Square buildings, but it has since been stuccoed over, according to city documents. Today, it’s a boring gray box darkened by the shadow of the crumbling viaduct.
Yet, thanks to a months-long fight between Pioneer Square neighbors and developers, the unexceptional garage has been temporarily saved. Late last month, a group of Pioneer Square neighbors successfully halted the development of an 11-story, 200-unit market-rate apartment building on the site of the nearly century-old garage. The neighbors aren’t explicitly arguing for the garage, but on a block of mostly four- and five-story buildings, they say the proposed building wouldn’t fit the “character” of Pioneer Square…
