Georgetown gets makeover: Affordability draws businesses to move in, clean up the area
A year and a half later, the bar, the building, and Georgetown itself, are very different.
After an extensive renovation, The Nine Pound Hammer is a booming hangout for a crowd that Horrell describes as "bikers, scooter freaks, artists, lots of artists, artisans and old hippies." It is also one of a growing number of businesses reviving the historic South Seattle neighborhood's long-suffering commercial core.
These shops have ignored the first three rules of real estate — location, location, location — and put their faith in cheap rents, old buildings and a tight-knit sense of common cause.
Noisy, isolated and nearly forgotten, the neighborhood wedged between Interstate 5 and Boeing Field is thriving in spite of itself.
"A lot of people wouldn't touch Georgetown with a 10-foot pole," said John Bennett, who started buying commercial buildings in the neighborhood a decade ago. "Real-estate investors, the ones who make a lot of money, don't mess with it. I do it because I love it."
Much of greater Georgetown has long been given over to tilt-up warehouses, a handful of strip malls and isolated residential areas that survived the bulldozer. But the historic buildings that line Airport Way South between South Lucile Street and Carleton Avenue South, including the imposing brick complex that was once the city's largest brewery, have managed to weather the years for one reason:
"They are still here because they aren't worth anything," said Bennett, who now owns seven buildings in Georgetown that he mostly rents to artists and small businesses.
Real-estate observers say Georgetown's turn-around has been in the cards since rent refugees from Seattle's traditional artist neighborhoods like Pioneer Square, Belltown and Fremont discovered the funky, out-of-the-way neighborhood in the 1990s.
But the pace has picked up in the last two years as a handful of bars, restaurants, coffeehouses and other businesses have established themselves in old buildings that largely had been neglected since I-5 cut through the neighborhood in the '60s.
But Georgetown is no Pioneer Square. The weedy vacant lots, rusting truck bodies and multicolor collections of 55-gallon steel drums are still a dominant part of the landscape.
The roar of airplanes that fly over Georgetown as they land at Boeing Field regularly drowns out conversation, as does the chug of trains that also run through the neighborhood. Trucks rumble through the narrow streets, shaking buildings as they pass.
T. Clear said she never considered Georgetown as a location for her Two Tartes Bakery until she happened to drive through the neighborhood a few months ago and saw the For Lease sign in a rundown storefront.
"I thought, 'Oh my God, this is it,' " Clear said while taking a break from the extensive renovations she and her partner are doing to get the bakery ready for its October opening. "The building is a bit decrepit, but it has charm."
The Two Tartes will join Industrial Coffee, Helmet Head Salon, Georgetown News and Video, Stella Pizza and Ale and All City Coffee, which have been drawing customers to the area. A jazz club and a microbrewery are set to open soon.
Unlike Fremont, where recent redevelopment has come in the form of multimillion-dollar office buildings, the model in Georgetown's commercial core is finding tenants such as Clear and Horrell who are willing to pour sweat and money into remodeling space in exchange for cheap rent.
It's still possible to rent retail space in Georgetown for $1 to $3 a square foot, compared with the $20 to $30 a square foot common in much of Seattle and the Eastside.
Horrell figures the $1,500-a-month rent for his tavern is just about the best deal in town.
Totally Blown Glass, which makes handblown glass fixtures and artwork, was one of the first businesses to open in Georgetown in 2000. It was about the time the closure of the century-old Jules Maes Saloon stuck a blow to the community's identity.
Even then, glass store co-owner Jackie Mendelson said Georgetown's appeal was on the rise.
"With the upscaling of Pioneer Square and Capitol Hill, everyone was scrambling to find inexpensive places to live and work," she said.
Tom Gomez of InnerMountain Realty also saw Georgetown's potential as an artists' community. He has helped convert much of the old brewery, owned by Rainier Cold Storage, into studios and work space for artists and small businesses.
Gomez recently opened 35,000 square feet more space in the building. After a slow start to the leasing, the pace has picked up.
"The last few months have seen a distinct change," he said. "We've had the telephone ringing and leases signed at a rate that has been very gratifying."
Rainier Cold Storage recently left the rest of the brewery, opening up the potential for even more commercial space.
The amount of change has caused some to worry that Georgetown soon could become the victim of its own success, with demand pushing up rents and running out the artists and small businesses that have helped turn the area around.
Maybe someday, Gomez says. But for now, he figures the noise, out-of-the-way location and industrial nature of the place will stall any major redevelopment.
"I don't see someone coming down here and building condos. I just don't see the economic drivers to push a big change."
Horrell agrees. "Unlike Ballard or Fremont, we have planes landing over our heads, and if a train rolls by, you'd think the world was coming to an end," he said.
J. Martin McOmber: 206-464-2022 or mmcomber@seattletimes.com