The Ace Hotel opened in early 1999 with management vowing to make it the place for visiting rock musicians to stay. (The hoteliers' own musical tastes, if its opening-night party was any indication, tend not toward rock but to thumpa-thumpa DJ music.) The building originally housed a soft-drink bottler; that's why the side has faded dual 7 Up and Pepsi billboards. Later tenants included a costume shop, a neon-lighting store, and the Seattle Peniel Mission (which helped ex-cons re-enter society and stay out of the slammer). The mission luckily owned an interest in the building; so when the building was upscaled, the mission got some decent relocation money out of the deal.