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Building History

The architect Frank H. Fowler designed the Cornelius Apartment Hotel for a busy Downtown Seattle site in 1925. A drawing with a caption appeared in the Seattle Sunday Times of 08/02/1925. It read: “Work on the Cornelius Apartment Hotel, Third Avenue and Blanchard Street, second large structure of that character to be built in the vicinity of Times Square this year, will be started in a few days, Frank H. Fowler, architect, announced yesterday. The building will be nine stories, 120 by 108 feet, Class A construction, and will cost about $600,000.” (See "Structure to Represent Investment of $600,000," Seattle Sunday Times, 08/02/1925, p. 14.)

A fuller description of the building was published by the Seattle Daily Times on 08/03/1925: "“‘Preparation of plans and superintendence of construction will be handled by Frank H. Fowler, Architect and Engineer. The details of the building have been summarized by him for us as follows: ‘The Cornelius Apartment Hotel will be an absolutely fireproof Class A nine-story building, located on the northeast corner of Third and Blanchard. The building will contain 138 two and three-bedroom apartments, featuring large living rooms, dressing rooms, built-in tile baths, spacious kitchens, steam heat and parquet oak floors. All apartments will have full automatic refrigerators. The building will also contain a large lobby, fully equipped laundry, tenants’ storage room, garbage incinerator with connections on every floor. The building will be served by two electric automatic passenger elevators. Twenty-four-hour private exchange telephone service will be maintained. Location—Three blocks north and one block west of Times Square. The building faces the south and west and commands a very excellent view overlooking Elliott Bay.” (See Continental Mortgage and Loan Company advertisement, Seattle Daily Times, 08/03/1925, part II, p. 1.)

The Continental Mortgage and Loan Company of Seattle offered $335,000 in serial bonds paying 7% interest in 08/1925. (See Continental Mortgage and Loan Company advertisement, Seattle Daily Times, 08/03/1925, part II, p. 1.)

On 09/18/1991, the Tenshodo Company, Ltd., transferred the deed of the Cornelius to Triad Third Avenue, Limited Partnership for no money. Triad Third Ave., LP, sold it to MGF Cornelius Investments, LLC, and MG Cornelius Apartments Holdings, LLC, on 04/26/2012 for $18,431,500. On 03/16/2016, Cornelius Apartments, LLC, purchased ownership for $29,581,500 from the previous ownership pair. (See King County Department of Assessments.gov. "Parcel Data for Parcel 069400-0080," accessed 03/25/2024.)

Building Notes

In 1931, the mother of the architect Victor Steinbrueck worked as a telephone operator at the Cornelius Apartment Hotel. (See Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1931, p. 1594.)

The Cornelius advertised its "finest two-room apartments in the city" in the 09/02/1957 classified ads of the Seattle Times.

In 2024, the 98-year-old Cornelius occupied a 12,960-square-foot (0.30-acre) lot, and had 86,592 gross square feet, 62,380 net. Its 137 apartment units averaged 455 square feet in size. The building had a reinforced-concrete frame and a 3,756-square-foot basement. Land and building had a taxable value of $2,500,000 in 1989-1990, $5,336,000 in 1999-2000, $16,856,000 in 2009-2010 and $35,892,000 in 2019-2020. (See King County Department of Assessments.gov. "Parcel Data for Parcel 069400-0080," accessed 03/25/2024.)

Alteration

Significant renovations occurred at the Cornelius in 1997, according to King County Department of Assessment records.