AKA: Schwabacher Building #8, Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA; Merrill Place Condominium Building, Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA

Structure Type: built works - dwellings - houses - apartment houses; built works - industrial buildings - warehouses

Designers: [unspecified]

Dates: constructed 1905-1905

5 stories, total floor area: 28,798 sq. ft.

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This warehouse was part of the Seattle business empire of the Schwabacher Family which included, after 1893, a grocery business (Schwabacher Brothers and Company), hardware company (Schwabacher Hardware Company), wharf, real estate, and other investments.

A taller, but comparably styled warehouse for the Schwabacher Hardware Company stood on this site from 1904-1905. It burned on 02/11-12/1905 in a large fire. The previous warehouse stood eight stories tall, and this replacement only rose five. The Schwabacher Hardware Company Warehouse #2 was notable for the Sullivanesque terra cotta panel hanging above its main door; English-born architect Charles H. Bebb (1862-1942) had worked for the Chicago firm, Adler and Sullivan, between c. 1888-1893.

The R.D. Merrill Company, an old Seattle lumber and real estate firm (dating to the 1890s), sought historic certification for four of its properties in Pioneer Square in 1983: the Schwabacher Hardware Company Building (1903-1905), Seller Building (1906), Hambach Building #4 (1913) and Schwabacher Warehouse Annex (1909), to obtain tax benefits. In 1985, it conglomerated these four buildings into one, calling the new development, "Merrill Place." Olson/Walker and NBBJ Architects supervised this rehabilitation process. Nitze-Stagen and Company, Incorporated, purchased Merrill Place in 1997, and supervised the renovation of this mixed-use facility the following year. In 2007, Nitze-Stagen continued to own the complex, at which time it contained 191,621 rentable square feet. The warehouse specifically had, in 2014, 21,707 square feet of condominiums, 1,838 square feet of retail, and a basement with 5,253 square feet of office space. The warehouse stood on a 5,487-square-foot lot.