Will Fenix Underground rise? Building shored as club owners look for new location
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Rick Wyatt, co-owner of the Fenix Underground, moaned when he drove by the building that housed his music club for over a decade.
"Ohhhh," he said, glancing at the boarded-up, fenced-in, stripped-down building, which yawned even more cavernously yesterday as workers began removing cracked walls, bricks and other structures damaged in last week's earthquake.
The Fenix - a fixture of the Pioneer Square club scene - and the turn-of-the-century Cadillac Hotel that housed it, were hard hit by the Feb. 28 quake. The roof of the Fenix Underground collapsed, almost trapping co-owner Mike Lagervall.
Since the quake, the sidewalk around the building has been fenced, brick and rubble have been piled and windows have been boarded.
Yesterday, contractors began taking down damaged parts of the building in preparation to temporarily shore it up.
"It was shocking in the beginning, and now each visual is another blow," said Wyatt, who is scouting for a new location for his club. "It's hard to take, some days."
It's still undecided whether the building will be restored or demolished. "But the goal is to ensure that the building is preserved if at all possible," said Cara McDonald, spokeswoman for Goodman Financial Services, which owns the building.
The building will be shored up while the owner and the Seattle Department of Design, Construction and Land Use (DCLU) and Historical District staff review how best to retain the historical character of the building.
"Because it's in a historic area, it's particularly important that we minimize further impacts to that building before we can have a review," said Alan Justad, spokesman with DCLU.
In any case, it could be a year and a half before the building is ready to be occupied again, Wyatt said. And that means he's looking for a new space - some 12,000 square feet -- for the Fenix. He'd like to open a club in six months - hopefully in Pioneer Square.
"But without an address, that's just dreaming right now," he said.
The Fenix owners had just negotiated a new eight-year lease at the Cadillac Hotel, Wyatt said, and were planning to expand its 10,000-square-foot club into the adjoining pool-hall space upstairs, which Wyatt also leases. The club was the sole occupant of the building.
"Now I have 15 employees on the street," he said. The Fenix Underground opened on New Year's Eve 1992 with The Duffy Bishop Band its first headliner. Since then it has offered different formats, from cover bands to DJ music to electronica to reggae.
Wyatt and his partners opened the Fenix Above Ground next door to the club on New Year's Eve 1994. The newer, larger venue allowed them to bring in national touring groups such as the Brian Setzer Orchestra and George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. They closed the Above Ground last April.
The Fenix had extensive insurance, covering everything from fire to theft to riots - but not earthquakes.
"We were insured for all the causes you can imagine except for the one that mattered," said Wyatt, who estimated his losses at more than a half-million dollars. He's looking into applying for a FEMA loan.
The challenge now is finding a large-enough space in Pioneer Square suitable for a club. Since there isn't a club space in the neighborhood that's open now, the Fenix owners are likely looking at changing the use of a building.
But Wyatt vowed: "The Fenix shall rise again."